The number of vehicles allowed at Renwick Domain would increase from 10 to 20. Photo / Chloe Ranford / LDR
Freedom campers may be spoilt for choice in Marlborough by next summer as a long-running bylaw change moves closer.
The latest version of the bylaw, which needs to be signed off by the full Marlborough District Council in March, will allow for freedom camping at 11 sites across the district – up from just five.
However, each location will have some restrictions, such as the number of days campers can stay, the number of vehicles allowed on-site or what days of the week camping is allowed.
Marlborough Mayor Nadine Taylor, who was on the panel which heard submissions on the latest version of the bylaw, said at the assets and services meeting on Tuesday she was very confident with the “thorough” process the panel had followed in reaching this point.
The 11 sites under the Responsible Camping Control Bylaw 2020 to be approved by the council were the Wairau Diversion, Taylor Dam, the Renwick Dog Park, Renwick Domain carpark, Wynen St carpark, Lansdowne Park carpark, Lake Elterwater Road Reserve (Ward), Blairich Reserve (Awatere Valley), Opouri Rd and Alfred Stream (Rai Valley) and Wash Bridge Recreation Reserve on State Highway 63.
The popular fishing site at the Wairau Diversion would have the capacity for 75 vehicles, while the capacity at Renwick Domain would increase from 10 to 20 vehicles.
Camping at Lansdowne Park was limited to four vehicles and a one-night stay only. Meanwhile, at Blairich Reserve, camping in tents was allowed because the area was popular with cyclists.
The council would need to apply for resource consent for the Alfred Stream, Opouri Rd and Renwick Dog Park sites.
It comes nearly two years after the New Zealand Motor Caravan Association challenged the council’s Responsible Camping Control Bylaw 2020, arguing the council’s actions in closing eight freedom camping sites at the time were “disproportionate and unreasonable”.
The panel considering the latest version of the bylaw was made up of independent commissioner Martin Williams, then-Marlborough mayor John Leggett and Taylor, who first read and heard close to 90 submissions in March 2022.
Initially, the council was proposing under the 2022 draft bylaw to increase capacity at the Renwick Domain site, and a freedom camping site at Blairich Reserve, Opouri Rd and Wash Bridge Recreation Reserve.
Submissions received at the time left the panel trying to search for a middle ground, with some wanting more restrictions on camping, and others wanting less.
NZMCA property and policy national manager James Imlach told the panel in March they thought the council was making similar mistakes to the development of the 2020 bylaw.
The association thought the analysis, or area assessments, were “poor”, and argued it was unnecessary to prohibit freedom camping in most of the region, as well as being disproportionate to perceived problems in Marlborough.
Following the hearings, the panel decided in April to have a closer look at the sites as well as several others, as they agreed with submissions that some of the sites left out of the draft bylaw could be made suitable with restrictions, such as the length of stay.
They reconvened in December 2022 after receiving 44 further submissions on the council’s latest statement of a proposal – which included more proposed freedom camping sites than the initial draft bylaw.
Council parks and open spaces planner Linda Craighead told the assets and services committee approving the bylaw was the “final step” in a long process.
This prompted Wairau-Awatere councillor Scott Adams to ask if the process had been robust enough that it would not open the council up to another High Court challenge.
One of the major reasons for the High Court case was because the NZMCA believed the public was not consulted properly on the bylaw, and that the bylaw undermined the Freedom Camping Act, which guided the bylaw review, and said councils “must not absolutely prohibit freedom camping” in their regions.
Craighead said while they could not guarantee that it won’t, they had been through two subsequent submissions and hearings to reach the bylaw in its current form.
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