Brochures and bylaws on camping sites and rules may have little input into where campers end up, if an event in Portobello last Saturday night is anything to go by.
Cr Neville Peat and community board members responded to complaints from residents after about 30 people with 12 vehicles and four tents set up camp on the Portobello domain.
It soon emerged the campers, who were from outside Dunedin, some French and German, and all tidy and well behaved, had found the site listed as a camping spot on a digital app.
Otago Peninsula Community Board member Paul Pope said the council group had ''quite a friendly chat'' with the campers.
The campers were told they were not supposed to be there, but that time of night, about 9.30pm, ''what were we going to do?''
Mr Pope said the app's developer, WikiCamps New Zealand, had agreed to remove the site.
Council information on sites might need to be distributed more online, than in brochures, he said.
