Report on Community Issues survey into Freedom Camping

Term 1 2010

After considering a wide range of possible issues, the class finally decided to investigate freedom camping. We were persuaded by its topicality and the proposal from Bob Cooke to charge a small fee for overnight campers at the Beach Reserve. We invited Phil Bergman, who is charged with responsibility for policing the Tasman District Council's regulations concerning reserves, to explain his experiences with freedom campers. We also heard from Bob Cooke who explained his proposal and his concerns about freedom camping. From our research we drafted a questionnaire and surveyed 383 people in our community.

Click here to view the survey questions »

The results indicated that 80% were aware of what freedom camping was and 40% had done freedom camping at some stage in their lives. 64% could identify locations in our district where freedom camping occurs and the most commonly identified locations were Motueka River, Beach Reserve and under the Motueka River bridge. A surprise was that 35 different locations in the Motueka District were reported including: the Kumaras, the Skateboard park, Motueka Quay, Deck's Reserve and roadsides.

49% believed that freedom camping was a problem for our district with 84% identifying human waste as a significant health risk. 68% believed that freedom camping should not be allowed near motor camps, 52% did not believe it was too expensive for the TDC to collect fees at popular reserves, 58% supported the idea of freedom camping, 76% believed illegal campers should be fined and yet 65% would not report illegal campers to the TDC.

55% supported the use of ratepayers' funds to provide improved facilities such as toilets and clean water for popular reserves. The solutions to the freedom camping issue most supported were providing toilets on the reserves most used by freedom campers, followed closely by fee collection. Only 15% supported a total ban on freedom camping.

70% also supported the proposed new law to require all rental campervans to have a three day minimum capacity for toilet and greywater.

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