Free camping loophole plan

A freedom camping loophole that allows people to park along a popular Christchurch coastline for 24 days without breaking the law could be stamped out.

Freedom camping is allowed along a stretch of New Brighton’s Marine Parade, but only in selfcontained campers and only for two nights within a 30-day period.

But the existing bylaw allows the clock to reset if people move 500 metres along the road.

Marine Parade is more than six kilometres long, and under current regulations people are camping for two nights, moving 500 metres and then repeating, meaning they can stay in the area for 24 nights without breaching the bylaw. ‘‘This is not what was intended,’’ a city council report said.

As part of a bylaw review, the council is now proposing to change the rules to allow freedom camping for up to four nights out of 30, with no more than two nights in one place within the zone.

The zone runs from Beach Rd at Waimairi Beach in the north, to Southshore Spit, using Bower Ave and the Avon River as the inland boundary. Council strategic policy head Emma Davis said the changes would better protect the area and the local community from the impacts of freedom camping.

The council also plans to limit the number of freedom campers that can park at Lyttelton’s Naval Point to 18.

There is no limit on the number who can park there now, and before the Covid-19 border closure an average of about 50 were parking there each night in the summer, sometimes as many as 70.

Davis said the proposed changes were to help balance the needs of different groups using Naval Point.

The area may also be temporarily closed to freedom campers during the international SailGP event, which will be based at Naval Point in early 2022, and the council plans to make a temporary weekend summer ban at the North Beach car park permanent.

In 2020 the council prohibited freedom camping at the car park during summer weekends to free up parking for the public, later extending the ban to the end of

2021. The council received 119 complaints about freedom campers this past summer and issued 44 infringements. There were 236 complaints the previous year and

41 fines.