A trial aimed at preventing tourists from leaving New Zealand with unpaid freedom camping fines appears to be making headway on the Coromandel.
Since September 2016, Thames-Coromandel District Council have run the trial in partnership with Jucy Rentals and Tourism Holding Ltd, which operates the Maui, Britz and Mighty Campers brands.
Under the trial, when an infringement is issued to a Tourism Holding Ltd or Jucy Rentals van the infringement is photocopied and invoiced to the hire company within 24 hours.
When the hirer returns the van to either one of those companies, they are then asked to pay their fine, says a TCDC spokesperson.
'Since the trial began in late September last year, 16 infringements have been issued to people hiring Jucy Rental camping vehicles, with 12 of those infringements have been paid, two remain unpaid and another two are under appeal,”
'Meanwhile, two infringements were issued to people hiring Tourism Holding Ltd camping vehicles over this same period. One infringement is under appeal while the other is still outstanding.”
TCDC will provide more information on the trial once it is completed at the end of the summer, adds the spokesperson.
Queenstown Lakes District Council is also trialling the partnership model.
5 comments
Great
Posted on 08-02-2017 16:02 | By overit
What a wonderful idea. We hire Campers in Oz and have to be cleared for a refund. This just may stop the nonsense of tourists doing 'what they want' on the land.
Good idea
Posted on 08-02-2017 16:37 | By The Sage
Yes it is a great idea. What about stepping it up a notch, for Tourists who have accidents. Take their passports off them. A couple of weeks ago an overseas Tourist got rtheir vehicle stuck on a railway line in Matamata. This resulted in a freight train hitting it. Unbelievably the tourist managed to skip the country before the court hearing two days later.
about time
Posted on 08-02-2017 16:46 | By hapukafin
why did it have to take so long to to enforce such a simple law.hire companies have the hirers credit card details.hope fully we will have a cleaner country side
So that's interesting...........
Posted on 08-02-2017 22:57 | By groutby
....it would seem that ALL the infringements have been issued to Jucy rental hirers and not THL clients?...these are usually (but not exclusively) those poxite little green vans without any facilities and certainly not (usually) self contained. Cheap they are and cheap and non-caring hirers I would suspect...if offending continues as expected, then this company needs to either expect a fine from a council in NZ, or clean up (pun intended) their act!..........
Waste of time
Posted on 09-02-2017 13:34 | By Sealegs
My experience is that the rentals are generally not the main problem, and the numbers involved confirm this. Most of the problem campers are young people who buy cheap vehicles to travel around the country. This solution does not target them, and until it does, then the main problem of abusing our freedom camping laws will remain. At the moment, its almost like tourists have free rein. Domestic campers must pay. Tourists can ignore the fines and leave the country. Surely it can't be too hard for the authorities to get together and devise a system where Councils confirm Passport Numbers for ID from these tourists, and link their infringement notices with Immigration so they can't leave until the fine is paid.
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