Environment Canterbury (ECan) has undertaken a thorough review of its resource consent processing procedures and is already seeing the benefits in terms of achieving compliance with statutory processing timeframes.
Director of planning and consents, Don Rule, says the organisation’s performance in recent years has been below par but this is now improving.
“Our performance in this area has not been good enough and so in the last year we have thoroughly reviewed our processes. In the last year our compliance rates have improved and we expect to improve even further.”
Mr Rule was responding to a survey released by the Ministry for the Environment which showed that Environment Canterbury’s consent processing compliance rates were poor.
“New data available since the last survey by the Ministry for the Environment already show an improvement. In the 11 months to the end of May 2009, 67% of consents receipted during the year were processed in compliance with statutory timeframes. We want to get even better.”
However Mr Rule says Environment Canterbury processes many more consents than any other regional council each year. “With more than 3000 consents on our books at any one time, this is more than three times the workload of any other regional council, and so our processes have been under pressure.”
Environment Canterbury is working through a backlog of 1500 applications, but 30% of those are on hold in agreement with the applicants.
Mr Rule says about 70% of all New Zealand’s irrigated land is in Canterbury and demand for water in the last decade has been intense. “It is important that we meet statutory timeframes but do not underestimate the difficulty of processing consents for water allocation.
“These applications are complex, have the potential to have a significant impact on the environment, and affect people’s livelihoods. This is reflected in the time taken for processing, particularly if a public hearing is required.”
Consent applications relating to water make up more than 50% of the applications in Canterbury, compared with just 5% nationally. In addition, 38% of consent applications in progress in Canterbury are notified, requiring public consultation, compared with 5-10% nationally.
For more information: Don Rule, ECan Director Resource Planning and Consents, 03 372 7233 or 027 215 0779