MOTORISTS' CAMPS

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 51, 16 March 1937, Page 9

MOTORISTS' CAMPS

V Additional Accommodation at Napier SITE AT MAREWA Additional accommodation for the large number of motorists who visit Napier during holiday periods is being provided by the Napier Borough Council at Marewa, where a site of three and a-half acres has been laid out and will be available for visitors at Eastertime. The shortage of accommoadtion foi? motorists at Napier has been serious for two or three years, but the position will now be relieved by this municipal motorists' camp which the council hopes to call ' ' The Charles Kennedy Memorial Park," in honour of one of Napier's well-known citizens. The camp, which is' situated on the site of the late Mr. Kennedy 's honie, at present comprises three and a-halt acres, but the council hopes gradually to increase it in size to ten acres. At Easter it will have bach accommodatiou for 30 or 40 people, and tent accommodation for an almost unlimited number. S^ecial features include a generous supply of large trees and hedges to provide shelter, a grass tennis court, a concrete swrnimj.ng oatii, anu an mouern cooamg and bathing facilities under separate roofs. Eight tramcars, the property of the mumcipality, have been brought into use as bachs. Each car is being fitted out with bunks, tables, cupboards, and gas lighting, and they will be ideai for giving shelter to those motorists who prefer sleeping under a roof to campmg under canvas. Napier is now provided with three well-equipped motorists 's camps, one at Westshore, one in George's Drive, and a third at Marewa. The vice-president of the Automobile Association (H.B.), Dr. W. D. Fitzgerald, inspected the Marewa camp yesterday and expressed the view that it was ideally suited for visiting motorists. In stating that with the growth of the caravan movement it was very neeessary for towns of any size to provide every possible facility for visiting motorists, he praised the work done by Mr. J. J. Lowry in giving such an excellent camp in George's Drive. "It might be thought that the expenditure of money on camps is a wafete," said the doctor, "but it must be remembered that other towns are doing the sanie for our people. It has been stated that these camps act to the detriment of hotels and boarding-houses, but I do not think this is the case at all. In a large number of cases visitors, especially those with children, are forced to find tho cheapest board possible while on their motoring holidays. ' '