QLDC approves consultation on freedom camping bylaw

Queenstown Lakes District Council will next month begin community consultation on its draft Freedom Camping Bylaw 2025 / Ture ā-Rohe mō te Noho Puni Korehere 2025.

Queenstown Lakes District is known to be one of the most popular camping destinations in New Zealand, and the most popular place for overnight ‘free camping’ with more than double the total number of overnight campers in 2024 than the next most popular territorial authority area. The popularity of freedom camping has significantly increased in recent years; between 2008 and 2018 the estimated number of international visitors practicing freedom camping in New Zealand rose from 10,000 to 123,000.

The Freedom Camping Act 2011 permits freedom camping by default on most Council land in New Zealand. Conversely, the Reserves Act 1977 generally prohibits camping on reserves, although an exception is a site at Luggate Red Bridge, where the Reserves Act restriction was previously lifted.

While councils cannot prohibit freedom camping across all of its land, it can create bylaws with rules to manage its impacts and protect the area, access to the area, and the health and safety of visitors to the area.

Queenstown Lakes District Council does not currently have a freedom camping bylaw in place. While a comprehensive freedom camping programme was in place for the recent summer period that aimed to educate campers and reduce instances of poor behaviour, the absence of a bylaw hampered the council’s efforts to balance the needs of the community and campers.

Council has undertaken a lengthy assessment process across the district, excluding reserve land, to identify where freedom camping may impact an area, access to it, or the health and safety of visitors to it. The draft freedom camping bylaw proposes to manage camping in those areas either through preventing camping entirely or proposing restrictions on it. Under the draft bylaw, freedom camping will be allowed in certain areas but subject to specific conditions including time restrictions, only using specified parking spaces, leaving no waste, lighting no fires, and a requirement for vehicles to be certified as self-contained with a toilet and grey water facilities.

It is proposed freedom camping will be allowed with restrictions in parking areas in:

• Queenstown

• Arrowtown

• Gibbston

• Kingston

• Glenorchy

• Wānaka, and

• Hāwea.

The draft also allows that freedom camping would also be allowed on most rural roads, subject to restrictions such as how close to the road a freedom camper can park themselves.

The draft bylaw proposes that freedom camping be prohibited on most roads located within the district’s built-up urban areas to protect access for the whole community to these roads and the parking spaces on them. This would include residential, town centre, commercial, and other business areas. Camping cannot occur on private roads.

The decision to consult the community was approved by a full Council meeting on Thursday 26 June, with the consultation period to run from 8 July to 8 August 2025.

The community will have an opportunity to make submissions on the proposal, at either one of two public drop-in sessions, or online via the Council’s Freedom Camping Bylaw consultation page on the Let’s Talk website.

Information on what’s proposed as well as the draft bylaw, statement of proposal, and maps of areas where freedom camping is proposed to be prohibited and restricted will also be available on the website.

Public drop-in sessions will take place at:

• Queenstown Events Centre 5.00pm-7.00pm on 14 July

• Wānaka Rec Centre 5.00pm-7.00pm on 15 July.

An online webinar will also be run at midday on 18 July. Details and registration information for the webinar will be available on the Council’s Let’s Talk webpage.

The results of the consultation will be considered by a hearing panel made up of councillors and will help to inform any changes to the draft bylaw ahead of it being adopted. The bylaw is expected to be finalised and in place before summer 2025-2026.

ENDS|KUA MUTU.

Media contact: communications@qldc.govt.nz or call 03 441 1802.

FURTHER INFORMATION | Kā pāroko tāpiri

The draft bylaw, statement of proposal, webinar information and registration, maps and the opportunity to make a submission will be available from 8 July at QLDC’s Let’s Talk community consultation website.