Boat ramp pay station erected as most users refusing to pay

For every 10 boats using council run access points at lakes around the Queenstown Lakes District only one boatie is paying for it, but a new way to capture fees may help turn the tide. 

Boat ramp users have the option to pay a $5 daily fee or purchase a $50 permit for a year, but deputy mayor and boatie Quentin Smith says less than 10 percent of people are paying.

He is defending a new parking machine set to replace an honesty box system at one Wānaka boat ramp.

He says there is no new fee here, just a new - and hopefully easier - way for the council to capture fees people should have been paying already to use an asset paid for by ratepayers.

"Fees haven't changed - they haven't for years and years," Councillor Smith says.

"I've been surprised by the pushback."

The erection of the new machine has caught many by surprise.

While some locals have voiced concerns after misconceiving the purpose of the pay station - believing it to be a parking meter - others are protesting at having to pay fees for what they claim are substandard facilities.

However Councillor Smith argues without user pays revenue there will be little option for upgrading boat ramps.

"The more revenue we collect from users appropriately, the more we can invest back".

Those assuming the new device was a parking meter were half-way there - it is a "repurposed and reprogrammed one" surplus to requirements and brought out of storage, Councillor Smith says.

It is his view boat ramp fees are "a very normal thing" around the country and if the new cashless payment option prompts more people to pay their way he would like to see more of them erected at boat ramps across the district.

He says traditionally over a few weeks of peak summer patronage school pupils had been stationed at boat ramps to collect fees, but in recent years there have been issues with some boat ramp users becoming aggressive.

Outside of this period the facilities are "unmanned".

Main images (Facebook): A reprogrammed parking meter will offer boat ramp users a new way to pay fees.