Govt may tackle freedom camping
Councils could get financial help from the Government to deal with ‘‘freedom campers’’. Prime Minister John Key told The
Nation ‘‘you have got people who are dumping waste product in the environment and that is very upsetting for everyone else’’.
The Government needed to look at whether there was more support it could provide to councils that were tackling the issue, he said.
‘‘Well, it is money, isn’t it, ultimately?’’ he said when asked what that support could be.
On average the amount of money tourists were spending in New Zealand was increasing, he said.
The Christchurch City Council said recently that it had received more than 180 complaints about freedom campers from residents since passing a freedom camping bylaw in December which restricted freedom camping to a few areas. This prompted it to close four freedom camping sites across the city, including Windsport Park until the end of May. Others closed are at Wainui, Addington Park car park and Lower Styx River. A fifth site at French Farm on Banks Peninsula was shut after sewage from toilets contaminated the harbour.
Meanwhile, work on a planned upgrade of a storm-water drainage system has allowed the Mackenzie District Council to temporarily close its most troublesome site, chief executive Wayne Barnett said. The council then voted to keep the site closed until after the district’s freedom camping strategy is reviewed with public consultation in April.
‘‘No camping’’ signs have been erected at Hamilton Dr on the shores of Lake Tekapo in the central North Island.
The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment has estimated that about 60,000 foreign tourists each year camp for free outside official camp grounds across the country, though it was the main form of accommodation for only 12,000 of them.
The chairman of the New Zealand Tourism Council Working Group, David Hammond, said problems with freedom camping had ‘‘exploded’’ this summer with issues in Christchurch and the Waitaki, Mackenzie, Tasman, Ruapehu, Coromandel and Queenstown districts.