Wanaka woman Heather Thorne is launching a campaign to gain more secure public access to the Department of Conservation's Kidds Bush camp site beside Lake Hawea.
The only road access - Meads Rd - was available over the summer but the road closed again on Monday for ''seasonal farming operations'' on Hunter Valley Station.
About 2km of Meads Rd is on station land farmed by lessees Taff and Pene Cochrane. The road was never gazetted, and public use of it has been a controversial issue for years.
Ms Thorne told the Otago Daily Times yesterday her family had been camping at Kidds Bush for ''donkeys' years''.
She believed responsibility for legalising the road lay with the Queenstown Lakes District Council but it was not taking the matter seriously.
She cited an email from council chief executive Adam Feeley to Land Information New Zealand (Linz) in May, in which Mr Feeley said the council considered it could acquire the road under the Public Works Act.
''At the same time, we doubt that the road (and ongoing costs associated with it) has any particular public importance should it not be publicly accessible''.
Ms Thorne said she strongly disagreed with ''that attitude''.
''I don't think [the council] realise how much that camp ground and that recreational area is used.
Ms Thorne said the camp was full at Waitangi weekend and there was a lot of talk about mounting a campaign aimed at maintaining public access.
She had discovered Linz had made an offer last year which ''would have seen the matter resolved''.
An email from Linz chief executive Peter Mersi to Mr Feeley stated his department was ''happy to pay for the costs of fencing, and indeed we will pay all costs associated with the legalisation of the road as allowed for under the Public Works Act.
Leaseholders would be compensated.
In response to ODT questions last week, Mr Feeley said there remained ''an unresolved, and divided, view'' whether the road ''is or is not legally gazetted''.
And, he said, as an alternative to further litigation, the council had proposed to the station it would not object to ''periodic short term closures'' for stock movement and other farming purposes, ''provided the road is otherwise kept open to the public''.
