The City of St. John’s says it will be flexible with timelines for people to collect their belongings at Cochrane Pond Park.
The city has given all people at the site 48 hours to vacate the premises, indicating that the campsite will be shut down until what have been described as life-safety deficiencies, are corrected.
However, the operator says the matter will likely go to court, and for him, it’s business as usual.
Sandy Hickman (VOCM News)
Councillor Sandy Hickman says they heard from residents at the site, and the company was given time to correct the inadequacies, but that didn’t happen.
Hickman didn’t get into what the specific issues are, but did say there is a “myriad” of them.
While the timeline of 48 hours has been given for people to get out, he says the city will be accommodating for individual circumstances so people can collect their stuff.
Hickman states that as long as people let the city know, they will work with them. He says the main thing is that people get out as quickly as possible for their own safety.
Operator Jeff Petten says it’s difficult for people to just up and leave. He says, as per usual the park will be cleaned and prepared for the start of the camping season, around the May 24th weekend. He says there are no fire or life safety concerns in the park.
He acknowledges that there were two fires in the park over the winter, but they stayed out of the matter as they were deemed suspicious and were being investigated by the RNC.
