The High Court has ruled the Queenstown Lakes District Council’s freedom camping bylaw is invalid and as a result the Council will be paying a significant portion of the New Zealand Motor Caravan Association’s costs for taking the action – on top of its own costs.
Those costs to Queenstown ratepayers were ‘completely avoidable’, says NZMCA CEO Bruce Lochore.
“Once again the Council have wasted ratepayers’ money on a case they had no hope of winning.
“It was clear as a bell that they would never get it across the line – and we told them that. But they refused to listen and will have to cover their own costs as well as a portion of ours.”
Confident the outcome of this latest judicial review completely vindicates the Association’s decision to challenge QLDC’s freedom camping bylaw 2021, Mr Lochore says it follows the costs the QLDC incurred in defending the NZMCA’s challenge to its ‘severely flawed and illegal 2019 bylaw’.
In the latest decision Justice Osborne, in the High Court in Invercargill, has declared QLDC’s decision to adopt its 2021 bylaw was invalid due to the unlawful influence and consideration of irrelevant matters, namely the economic impact on commercial campgrounds and the effects on private property values/amenity.
“This is a significant outcome for members,” said Mr Lochore. “The Association has been battling QLDC’s unlawful decisions for over a decade, and this decision will prevent other councils from making similar errors, enabling more reasonable opportunities for responsible campers to enjoy travelling New Zealand in self-contained vehicles.”
Supplied NZMCA Board Report for October 2024