A popular Catlins campground which clocked up more than 17,000\u00a0stays last year could remain closed for its busy summer season amid uncertainty over its lease.<\/p>\n
Southland District Council is racing to find a solution for the Curio Bay campground \u2013 a council-owned site situated in an area home to Hector\u2019s dolphins and a petrified forest.<\/p>\n
The campground has been closed since April and the expiration of its long-term lease had not yet been resolved, a council report said.<\/p>\n
\u201cCurio Bay is a busy campground, with booking records showing around 17,300 nights of use in 2025, most of these over the summer months.<\/p>\n
\u201cDespite this, the current arrangements have not returned anything to council.\u201d<\/p>\n
In June, a 20-year lease between the council and the South Catlins Charitable Trust expired. The trust is the\u00a0operator of\u00a0 the campground and nearby multi-purpose facility Curioscape that has a cafe and visitor centre.<\/p>\n
Day-to-day operations of Curioscape had been sublet since it opened,\u00a0but the trust\u2019s most recent operator left earlier in the year, the report said.<\/p>\n
Both the campground and Curioscape had been closed since April.<\/p>\n
The council said it was advised by the trust that the lease was not fit for purpose and would need revision ahead of a long-term commitment.<\/p>\n
Under the previous arrangement, the council charged a \u201cnominal\u201d rent while the trust received all revenue from the campground and cafe.<\/p>\n
That arrangement had not been financially beneficial to the council, as it spent $84,000 in the last financial year alone on water, rubbish, maintenance and a contribution to the trust.<\/p>\n
A further complication was the ownership structure at play.<\/p>\n
While the council owned the land where the campground and Curioscape sat, the trust owned the amenity block and Curioscape building, including its public toilets.<\/p>\n
The council identified a new operating model was needed long-term, but hoped to open the campground for the upcoming season without losing money.<\/p>\n
An extraordinary council meeting will address\u00a0the issue on Monday.<\/p>\n
Options include independently engaging an operator, implementing an automated system with a caretaker, or keeping the campground closed.<\/p>\n
The trust said it would soon be looking for a Curioscape cafe operator, and had agreed to include campground operations in the mix \u2014\u00a0another option for the council.<\/p>\n
The council report acknowledged there had been limited reporting under the old lease and it had only recently received its first \u201cdetailed picture\u201d of how the campground was used.<\/p>\n
\u201cTariffs, revenue and operating costs are still unknown to council,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n
According to booking data for 2025, there had been 17,300 stays, of which\u00a0about 61% were\u00a0in summer.<\/p>\n
LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A popular Catlins campground which clocked up more than 17,000\u00a0stays last year could remain closed for its busy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":626414,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[138,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-626413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626413","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=626413"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626413\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/626414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=626413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=626413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=626413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}