Whangārei’s Lynne Smallbone wants the Vine St carpark converted to parking for campervans and caravans. Photo / Susan Botting
Whangārei’s Lynne Smallbone wants the Vine St carpark converted to parking for campervans and caravans. Photo / Susan Botting
A Whangārei motorhome campaigner is calling for the local council to convert its Vine St carpark to large-sized vehicle parking.
Lynne Smallbone, 80, says this would encourage visitors travelling in motorhomes and caravans to stay in the city and spend money.
Smallbone has calcuated around 3000 motorhomes and caravans wouldpotentially use the Vine St carpark annually – if it was converted to about a dozen 6.5m-plus vehicle parks.
She said the visitors needed to be able to stay for up to three days. There was currently no suitable parking available in the city centre for longer than three hours.
Smallbone said the carpark visitors would contribute about $1 million to the city’s economy each year as those who parked there spent money in the city on a range of activities.
Whangārei motorhome campaigner Lynne Smallbone at WDC's Te Iwitahi council chambers ahead of lobbying at the meeting for the city's Vine St carpark to be converted to up-sized parking for campervans and caravanners. Photo / Susan Botting
Smallbone has been travelling New Zealand and the world in a VW Kombi then motorhome since 1969. She has led motorhome touring through Alaska.
She said there were no 12m-plus carparks in the city where a car and its caravan could remain connected when it parked.
There are 96 parks in the carpark.
Smallbone said cars displaced from the carpark could be accommodated along the city end of nearby Railway Rd, where angle parking could be provided.
That street was the same width as Robert St where the council had recently introduced angle parking.
Smallbone surveyed State Highway 1 traffic at Lookout Hill 5km south of Whangārei’s city centre during the week of March 9-15.
She counted 238 motorhomes or caravans heading north and south.
“And every one of those had to pass through Whangārei, but did they stop, when there’s no suitable parking?”
Smallbone said one Dunedin caravanning couple she spoke to had been staying at Maunu and wanted to travel into the city centre to visit local attractions. But she said they did not do so because they could not find suitable parking.
Smallbone said the city’s many attractions they could have visited included Whangārei Town Basin, Hundertwasser Art Museum, Clapham’s Clocks, a local supermarket, Town Basin loop walk, Burning Issues glassblowing studio, Reyburn House, Whangārei Art Museum, central library and Quarry Gardens.
She said smaller campervans were already provided for at the Bascule carpark alongside Te Matau a Pohe lift bridge.
Smallbone will make a formal submission on the upsized parking as part of WDC’s 2026-2027 annual plan public consultation which closes on Friday at 4pm.
■ LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.
