By\u00a0Claire Taylor, Local Democracy Reporting<\/p>\n
User charges are returning to Lake Tekapo’s footbridge public toilets, a move the Mackenzie District Council says will help maintain tourist infrastructure in the alpine town.<\/p>\n
The decision was made at the council’s extraordinary meeting on Tuesday, following a discussion by councillors around the cost of upkeeping the facility and the success of other paid toilets in Tekapo’s Hamilton Drive.<\/p>\n
Reinstating the user charges at the footbridge toilets would support maintenance costs and assist the council in meeting it’s annual income target, a report in Tuesday’s agenda said.<\/p>\n
The council’s general manager operations and regulatory services, Neil Jorgenson, said, historically, pay to use toilets had required more maintenance and that was something the revenue would support.<\/p>\n
“The system’s not totally fool-proof, and it does fail from time to time so it does require more unplanned maintenance.”<\/p>\n
Users will soon pay between $1.50 and $2 (depending on payment type) to use the toilets near the Lake Tekapo footbridge.<\/p>\n
Opuha ward councillor, and deputy mayor, Rit Fisher questioned the cost of reinstating the pay machines at the footbridge toilets.<\/p>\n
Jorgensen replied saying it would be “relatively easy” to turn back on.<\/p>\n
“There was no removal of kit from the site … the minimal cost is just the electrician or the company to turn it back on.”<\/p>\n
Councillors unanimously supported the reinstating of the user charges, the decision moved by Pukaki ward councillor Frank Hocken and seconded by Fisher.<\/p>\n
Toilet user charges for the Tekapo footbridge and Hamilton Drive facilities were initially introduced in the council’s 2025\/26 annual plan.<\/p>\n
Jorgenson said charges at the Tekapo footbridge toilets were removed mid-2025, after the council ruled only non-urban facilities would be user-pays.<\/p>\n
“Council discussed this matter and voted that main toilet blocks outside of the urban areas would be user pays and those within the 50km speed limit would not.”<\/p>\n
The Hamilton Drive facilities, constructed in July, sit outside the urban area and had maintained user charges.<\/p>\n
The cost to use the Hamilton Drive toilets was $1.50 for electronic payments and $2 for coin payment. The charges generated about $25,000 in gross annual revenue.<\/p>\n
The same charges would apply to footbridge facilities.<\/p>\n
\u00a0– LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By\u00a0Claire Taylor, Local Democracy Reporting User charges are returning to Lake Tekapo’s footbridge public toilets, a move the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":375934,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[111,43,139,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-375933","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-new-zealand","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-newzealand","11":"tag-nz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=375933"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375933\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/375934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=375933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=375933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=375933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}