Freedom campers intrude on privacy
Freedom campers have left residents in a Marlborough Sounds bay feeling ‘‘vulnerable’’ after years of defecating in their gardens, pinching their water and internet, and demanding to shower.
During annual plan hearings on Wednesday, Double Bay residents asked the Marlborough District Council to close the freedom camping site just 50 metres from their homes, or move it.
Kathryn Omond, who represented nine Double Bay households, said few other Marlburians faced the issues and intrusion that they did.
‘‘One campervan got stuck driving up a driveway and then went wandering until they found an open garage and, thinking it was a ‘‘council workshop’’, they helped themselves to the tools,’’ she said.
The tourist was stopped but the garage owners had to install security cameras after the incident ‘‘at a significant cost’’. One resident removed their outdoor tap to prevent water theft.
Margaret Curteis said campers often knocked on her door asking for a shower, to do laundry, to use her wi-fi, or to park on her lawn. ‘‘If you refuse, they get aggressive and very rude with you,’’ she told councillors.
Her 4-year-old granddaughter had found human waste covered in toilet paper in her garden.
‘‘We feel vulnerable. How long is it until they break into our homes?’’
Tourists also lit campfires during fire bans, and left behind full bags of rubbish.
Omond said tourists often parked in the bay’s grass helipad, used six times in the past year, putting patients, including her husband, at risk.
She said closing the site would cost the council nothing.
But Marlborough mayor John Leggett said at the hearings while their case was ‘‘very compelling’’, freedom camping was legal in New Zealand under the Government’s Freedom Camping Act.
‘‘Local [council] authorities have to find a way to accommodate freedom campers. That’s the dilemma for us,’’ Leggett said.
He suggested the residents rehash their submissions during next month’s review of Marlborough’s freedom camping bylaw, which prohibits self-contained freedom camping in all but designated sites in the region, such as at Double Bay’s reserve.
Councillors would consider annual plan submissions today.