Complaints about freedom campers on a roadside reserve opposite Puzzling World on SH84 have led the NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA) to limit access to the site.

From tomorrow (Tuesday May 13) NZTA will be restricting vehicle access by deepening the water table along the length of the site (a rectangular area used for parking), the Wānaka App has been advised.

This follows numerous complaints to NZTA and Queenstown Lakes District Council (QLDC) about freedom camping there.

NZTA has been in talks with QLDC and the Department of Conservation (DOC) about how best to deal with the camping on the reserve.

A resident who complained about freedom camping at the site said he was told QLDC holds the delegated enforcement capabilities for freedom camping on state highways, but without a freedom camping bylaw to support the policing of these areas “no freedom camping signs can be erected”.

Last year the High Court quashed QLDC’s 2021 Freedom Camping Bylaw, leaving the district without freedom camping restrictions - apart from restrictions under the Reserves Act regarding temporary and permanent accommodation, and the national Freedom Camping Act 2011 which requires that vehicles be certified self-contained to freedom camp. 

Read more: Council to blame for freedom camping open slather - NZMCA

QLDC has begun developing a new bylaw. Meanwhile, an NZTA spokesperson told the Wānaka App on Friday (May 9) the agency was “in the process of limiting access to the area”, which he said was officially “DOC land adjacent to the state highway corridor”.

In March this year QLDC summer ambassadors reported “concerning levels of non-compliance” among freedom campers visiting the district, citing evidence collected of littering, campers toileting in the bush, toothpaste spit, and non-self-contained vehicles. 

Read more: Washing lines, fire pits, toileting - a ‘non-compliance’ summer of freedom camping

The Wānaka App approached Wānaka Upper Clutha Community Board chair Simon Telfer for his perspective on the issue.

“It will be frustrating for some locals that NZTA have decided to close access to this vehicle park,” he said.  

“However freedom camping and the associated toilet paper strewn behind nearby bushes was getting a bit out of control. As current government policy is to invest heavily in marketing New Zealand internationally but to not provide substantive funding for tourism infrastructure, these pressures are going to escalate.

“The huge pressure on the [Wānaka Watersports Facility] toilets at Stoney Creek is another example. It shouldn’t be local residents who fund the infrastructure for freedom camping and Wānaka Tree ‘hop off, hop on, head out’ visitors.”

The Wānaka App was advised that people wanting to access the Mount Iron Reserve will still be able to walk or bike in and out of the reserve from the site opposite Puzzling World, and they can park at the reserve using the SH84 carpark or the Allenby Place carpark.   

PHOTO: Supplied