The gate at the Goldstream Provincial Park campground was closed for 24 hours on a day since Sept. 19, 2018.
The Ministry of Environment and Climate Change has announced the Goldstream Provincial Park campground will reopen at 8 a.m. on Friday.
The campground closed the night of Sept. 19 when a group of around 30 homeless campers who had been evicted from two locations in Saanich set up their tents in the area.
By Oct. 2, the campers had left the area. Some of them accepted spaces at the Victoria Native Friendship Centre and other shelter spaces in the Victoria while others went to a private property on West Saanich Road. The group later went to provincial land adjacent to the Patricia Bay Highway and are now at Cattle Point in Oak Bay.
The Ministry of the Environment did not immediately reopen the park after the homeless campers left, saying they had found needles and potential soil contamination during an inspection. The group campsites did remain open to the public.
On Thursday, the ministry said cleanup and remediation of the campground was done.
“BC Parks apologizes for any inconvenience the campground closure may have caused and thanks everyone for their patience,” BC Parks said in a statement.
The Ministry of Environment said costs for the tent city at Goldstream and subsequent cleanup aren’t available yet.
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