General News
20 June, 2026
Venue could ease crisis
A BUSINESS group is suggesting that the riverside caravan park in Innisfail should be turned into an accommodation hub.
Cassowary Coast Regional Council closed its 49-space, River Drive caravan park on the Bruce Highway at Mighell last December.
It then publicly advertised for expressions of interest (EOI) for the van park’s future use – but so far, no further information has been released about any possible new managers of the premium block.
The closure was part of council’s move away from owning and/or managing assets.
Former president of the Cassowary Coast Economic Development Group and Innisfail Chamber of Commerce Suzanne Russell said there were previous talks about that area of Innisfail and how it could be turned into a “cabin village.”
“The chamber had a meeting with the owners of the old high school site several years ago about the possibility of developing it as a ‘cabin village’ – where quality transportable cabins could be used as stop gap accommodation for workers and visitors,” Mrs Russell told The Observer.
“The owners indicated this wasn’t possible as a previous application to develop the site was met with a requirement to place two metres of fill across the whole site – something that was economically unviable for them,” she said.
“They lacked entrepreneurial vision but also lamented the lack of it from council.”
Now head of the business lobby group Activ8 Innisfail, Mrs Russell says there definitely needs to be more of a focus by governments, including local government, on building more housing in the town.
“There is a shortage of a range of accommodation from contract workers to professionals who are employed and asked to move here,” Mrs Russell says.
“Also, particularly for travellers and visitors, there is no tourism economy here to warrant a major hotel and boutique hotels have remained stagnant or gone backwards.
“There has also been a problem for workers to find reasonable singles’ or couples’ accommodation when they work here temporarily or are waiting for homes to be built or become available to rent.
“A lot of rental houses have been taken up by foreign workers for our banana industry, adding to our rental crisis. A cabin village would also help with crisis housing.”
Council has not released any more information about the EOI process on the River Drive site at this point, nor have they indicated when the van park’s future might come up for debate at a council meeting.
Read More: Innisfail