Increased efficiency and improved application methods have enabled Environment Canterbury to reduce the time involved in processing resource consent applications.

The regional council has undertaken a review of its consent processing procedures with the objective of improving overall timeframes, the levels of resourcing required and cost effectiveness.

“A key objective is to achieve 85 percent compliance with statutory timeframes by June 30 of this year and reduce the overall cost of processing applications,” said chair of the regulation overview committee, Councillor Angus McKay. “The goal is to be 100 percent compliant; however the trend for timeframes over the past 12 months is upward, rising from 13 percent in March 2008 to 65 percent in April this year. While there is still work to be done we are moving in the right direction.”

Measures also considered in the review include the streamlining of application forms and the handling of additional information requests. Since June 2008, the council has launched a series of booklets to support the application process, in particular dairy effluent discharge, and on-line bore application forms.

“The number of resource consent applications in process has decreased from 2046 in February 2008 to 1630 in March this year,” said Cr McKay. “This should continue to decrease by 50 – 60 per month.

“This will be helped by the declining number of applications receipted, which is currently 30 percent less than last year.”

Environment Canterbury expects additional improvement in these trends once the various process changes are implemented, and with larger consent applications moving towards completion, this will also free up the regional council’s resources for improved performance.

For further information contact: Cr Angus McKay, Environment Canterbury, 03 302 8660 or 0274 345 513 or Don Rule, Director Resource Planning and Consents, 03 372 7233, 027 215-0779.