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Campers could increase at site

Turner Valley’s Campground has reopened under the Town’s operation after the Foothills Lions Club was forced to walk away from the facility due to thousands in losses.

Turner Valley’s Campground has reopened under the Town’s operation after the Foothills Lions Club was forced to walk away from the facility due to thousands in losses.

Business was slow on its first weekend June 3 to 5 when only one-third of its 22 sites were used.

The Town of Turner Valley took over the newly-minted Turner Valley Municipal Campground, formerly called Hell’s Half Acre Campground, last month after town councillors agreed it provides an important economic boost the community can’t afford to lose.

Andy Pfeifer, director of engineering and municipal operations for the Town, said if the campground remains 75 per cent full for most of the season it should outweigh the Town’s cost to operate the site.

“It’s a little slower than I anticipated,” he said. “I thought for the first weekend we might have it half-full. We ended up with seven people.”

However, Pfeifer said he expects more campers will fill the sites as the season continues.

“I’m pretty confident it’s going to look after itself,” he said. “We had a number of wedding and family reunions from locals that wanted us to open. If it continues to populate it’s going to be a good season.”

The campground was previously operated by the Foothills Lions Club, which informed the Town in March it would no longer operate the facility after it lost $5,000 to $6,000 the last five years. Town staff created a new business model for the campground that included site improvements and rebranding.

Crews cleaned out the cook shack to make it a picnic area, they put down gravel pads for the fire pits, pruned trees, installed new signs, replaced the fire shed with a waste disposal site, added grass and gravelled the sites. Pfeifer said the Town contracted an independent source to sell firewood to campers in the evenings.

The Town also changed the name from Hell’s Half Acre. Registration and check-in now take place at the Dr. Lander Memorial outdoor swimming pool, beside the campground access area, and credit cards are now accepted, said Pfeifer.

Throughout the season, the Town’s parks and recreation staff will maintain the campground in addition to other parks and green spaces until it closes in late September, said Pfeifer.

“We haven’t determined how much time it’s going to take us to maintain it – we are tracking those hours now,” he said. “We already have our crews out and about anyway.”

Funding to operate the campground was not included in the Town’s 2016 budget. Money will be transferred from other facilities budgets.

“We will operate for the summer to see how it goes,” Pfeifer said. “By the end of the year we will say we brought in this amount of dollars and it cost us this much to maintain the campground and then we will determine if it’s an endeavor we want to continue.”

Any proceeds made from operating the campground will go towards operating costs for the outdoor swimming pool and spray park, said Pfeifer.

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