Published: 17 May 2019

Timaru District Council has been awarded $36,000 Government funding to support a range of projects to support responsible camping in the district.

The funding from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment has gone towards upgrading and improving key camp site facilities of the Timaru District. It supports the Tiaki Promise to care for New Zealand, now and for future generations.

Parks and Recreation Manager, Bill Steans, said that the funding was specifically earmarked to help enable people to camp in a more responsible and sustainable way.

“A key project is the installation of a new toilet together with a holding tank, at the popular Waitohi Bush Camp Site. This replaces older style long drop toilets and is better for the environment,” said Bill.

“Increasing camp site maintenance is another important part of the project. We have included additional toilet cleaning, refuse collections and new rubbish bins in both rural and urban camp sites in the district.”

The funding also enables the purchase of eight new information boards for our campsites. These not only inform campers about the landscape, heritage and natural history around the district, but also where to find the nearest campervan dump station and responsible camping rules, together with information for other tourism activities.

Construction of a hard stand car park is also underway at the Milford site which affords all weather car and camper parking.

“Camping is one of the most Kiwi of pastimes. It is an activity we treasure in the Timaru District and we want international visitors to experience it in a responsible way,” said Bill.

To complement these upgrades and improvements to our camp site facilities, we are updating pages within the Timaru District Council and Aoraki Tourism web sites promoting these camp sites and responsible camping.

“We believe these updates and improvements will help facilitate a better service for campers and visitors in a more environmentally friendly way,” said Bill.

Timaru District Council runs nine camping sites across the district which are free to responsible campers. More information about each of the sites can be found at: https://www.timaru.govt.nz/community/facilities/camping/

Last updated: 24 Feb 2021