Length
03:33
Summary
Devastated by floods in 2022, Aspen Lodge Caravan Park and its long-term residents are now well on their way to recovery.
Transcript
[Business sign of Aspen Park Caravan Lodge displaying at front of entrance]
Russell Prince, caravan park owner: I'm Russell and this is Yvonne. We're the owners of Aspen Lodge Caravan Park. It's not like a normal caravan park. Our residents are long term. It's their home and that's the way it's treated and we look after them like family. We lost 75% of our cabins in the floods. After that we started the process of rebuilding.
[footage of flooding around caravans and cabins with caption ‘Flooding October 2022’]
Yvonne Prince, caravan park owner: After we got hit by the flood, council approached us and they said that Emergency Recovery Victoria (ERV) was prepared to give us a grant to help us get the park up and running again, and that's enough to start us off and get us rebuilding.
[footage of workers in high-visibility vests and safety helmets conducting site assessments with caption ‘Structural assessment November 2022’]
[footage of excavator demolishing a caravan with caption ‘Clean up March 2023’]
[footage of two workmen with power tools building a platform and carting wooden planks on work site with caption ‘Rebuilding October 2023’]
Russell: If this park hadn't continued there would have been a lot of families living out on the streets, because they just can't afford normal resident rentals. We wouldn't have even got up and running. If we didn't have that grant it would have been impossible to keep going.
Yvonne: With new council regulations and fire regulations everything has to be up and eventually we'll start cladding underneath them as well to stop anything, embers or anything like that coming in.
Russell: Most of our residents are long termers which are pensioners, some mentally ill people, single parents, there's about 20 at the moment which is a big mixture. We've had a few of our returned residents which have been here for over 35 years and they're in their later years of life, they love this place. It's just it's their home. They just like coming here.
Yvonne: It was Wally who said he'd been lost after the flood. Now he's home. He's back and he's happy.
Wally Torpy, park resident: I'm Wally and I've been in this park for around about 33 years. When I came back home it boosted me to hell you got no idea. I used to sit out there on a chair and just reminisce … when my wife and I used to live here. I've got so many memories here. Aspen Lodge is my life, is my life, I love it here. I love it here and this is where I'm going to die here.
Russell: It means a lot to us because we like helping the community as much as possible and we don't like to see people struggling and being out on the streets and it just feels good to be able to do something for some of the residents and everything that we do have here. And if it wasn't for the Emergency Recovery Victoria team and everything like that, the place probably wouldn't exist again. And then like I said you'd have all these people living out in the streets. And there's still a lot of people in emergency accommodation. Once we get some more cabins available, there'll be more people coming back.
Yvonne: This is a unique project that the government's taken on. They don't usually do these sorts of things. You can't thank them enough. You really really can't thank them enough.
Russell: We realised that this place needed to keep going to help people, for that is what keeps us going, driving us to make this place better and build it back up again.
[Emergency Recovery Victoria logo]
[End transcript]
Updated