Freedom camping comes at a cost for small towns
Moana accommodation providers say revenue from campervans is shrinking as freedom camping grows.
In the small West Coast town beside Lake Brunner, three businesses with campervan sites say they face unfair competition from freedom camping sites, such as the one at nearby Iveagh Bay, and they want the Grey District Council to restrict its use.
Peter and Carol Roberts own the Lake Brunner Country Motel and their bookings for campervan sites are down 25 per cent on last year
He said accommodation businesses paid regional tourism organisation Development West Coast a lot of money for marketing but the organisation advertised freedom camping spots on its website.
‘‘It’s almost a conflict of interest that they do that, but it’s not an easy fight and it’s not a problem that we can wish away.’’ Roberts said it was ridiculous to turn over prime lakefront land to freedom campers.
Lake Brunner hotel owner Phillip Barnett, who also has campervan sites, said other councils permitted self-contained freedom camping in town car parks so that visitors were somewhere they could easily spend money.
As chair of the Greymouth Business Promotion Association, Barnett has written to the local council seeking further discussions. He lives at Iveagh Bay, where vehicles using the freedom camping area had to be self-contained and could park for up to three nights, but there were no restrictions on how many could stay there.
At residents’ request, the council had placed large rocks in the car park to ensure there were safe distances between vehicles equipped with gas bottles, Barnett said.
Jo Anne Wilson bought the Lake Brunner Motor Camp with a business partner in March and they have poured thousands of dollars into improvements. At Labour Weekend they had no campervan customers, yet a dozen were parked overnight for free at nearby Iveagh Bay. If each van carried two people paying the standard overnight camp ground charges, that would have been more than $400.
It wasn’t just about her income, but the economic impact on the wider community, Wilson said. ‘‘The West Coast is such a beautiful place, but all our industry is being taken away from us and if the West Coast has to make a living from tourism, we have to get it right.’’
There was a significant ripple effect on commercial operators regardless of where freedom camp sites were located, said Wilson.
‘‘They don’t need to be right beside you, people have apps and travel around looking for these free spots to park, and they have so much choice of where they can go.’’
Grey District mayor Tania Gibson said the council had set up three freedom camping areas to try to contain where travellers stayed, but she didn’t want any more.
‘‘It’s not doing our district any good as far as the tourism dollar is concerned, we’re not gaining anything out of these tourists.
‘‘I feel for the business owners at Moana, it’s not fair.’’
The council received $114,500 from an $8.5m Government fund to help provide freedom camping facilities such as toilets, but there was no money for maintenance and the cost of employing an enforcement officer still fell on ratepayers.
Gibson said she wanted the law changed so small vans with ‘‘porta potties’’ had to stay in proper camping grounds.
‘‘If the West Coast has to make a living from tourism, we have to get it right.’’
Jo Anne Wilson Lake Brunner Motor Camp