Mountain View County is looking at getting out of the campground business.
Council directed staff to investigate the potential for selling off Westward Ho Campground eight km east of Sundre as early as 2013.
In the meantime, the 450-site campground is being converted next year from a year-round facility into a seasonal operation open from May to September. The change will take effect on Jan. 1, when a five-year contract with the current operator expires. That deal will be replaced by a two-year agreement to run a seasonal facility that will be advertised early next year.
“We’re not convinced that government is real good at doing business,” said Councillor Paddy Munro. “The campground is very lucrative but it also takes a high degree of management.
“We’ve got some great campground enterprises in this county and they’re just thriving.”
If the municipality can find a buyer, the new operator will make money, the county will benefit through taxes and “everybody should be happy.”
Munro said the county wasn’t profiting from running the campground. In a good year, it was a break-even business, and in other years it cost the county up to $40,000.
“That’s the real issue for me. Not is it only not profitable, we don’t even make any taxes off of our land. We might as well let someone really good just go ahead and do it.”
Other campgrounds generate $150,000 to $200,000 a year in tax revenues for the county.
County community and parks services co-ordinator Michelle Honeyman said the new seasonal designation could open the door to service clubs or community groups interested in acting as contract operators. A request for proposals is expected to be released next January or February.
There was some concern on council that selling the campground could put the facility at risk if a buyer wanted to do something else with the land.
Munro doubted that the land would be worth buying except for use as a camping facility.
“The market will figure out exactly what will be needed there,” he said. “We will have enough campgrounds to look after the needs of the people because that’s just the way the market works.”
pcowley@www.reddeeradvocate.com