Sarah Burdon has been the leaseholder of the Queenstown Lakes District Council-owned Lake Hawea Holiday Park, known as "The Camp", for the past nine years.
She objects to the council creating new "hubs" for campervans, such as the one recently completed at the Red Bridge, near Luggate.
She points out there is room in existing Upper Clutha camping grounds for 554,000 bed nights, not including Department of Conservation camping sites.
And, she says, there is only one week a year when all are totally full.
"Statistics NZ states holiday parks in the Wanaka region were only at 27% occupancy, so there was definitely room for more campers across the region," she said.
Rather than creating new free facilities, she believes the council should be directing tourists to camping grounds.
The more campers who stayed in her park, the more improvements could be made, she said.
"It takes a lot of campers to build an ablution block."
Ms Burdon said she was recently visited by the council’s "camping wardens", who were looking at the facilities The Camp offered.
"The first thing they said was that they were out and about to promote the new hub set up at the Wanaka recreation centre for campers to have a shower, go to the loo and dispose of their rubbish and that it was free."
Ms Burdon said she told them that was what holiday parks were for.
"They provide services to campers doing exactly that.
"The one point of difference is that people had to pay $20 to stay and use the facilities and an extra $2.50 if they wanted power.
"If people can’t afford to pay for a shower and a dump station then people aren’t putting any value on our country, our land or our facilities."
QLDC general manager community services Thunes Cloete said it had not set up "hubs" to compete with local camping grounds.
"The initiatives in place for this summer are trials and will help us to gather data and insights to guide our strategy in the future."
The council had received government funding to help with the issue of freedom camping.
"A large portion of this funding is being used for education to guide campers about where to go.
"This includes promotion of the local camping grounds, holiday parks and activities across the region.
"If the vehicles are not self-contained, they are being directed to the camping grounds and holiday parks."
Related Stories
Comments
Totally agree, facilities already exist in the form of camping grounds. We do not need to support freedom campers fouling our land and wasting rate payer money. Council members voting for such schemes should pay for them themselves out of their own pockets and not force us to fund freeloading campers.