Government ministers failed again to persuade the Otago Regional Council (ORC) to pause its Land and Water Regional Plan, following an extraordinary meeting on Sunday (September 22).

A packed and very vocal public forum in Dunedin had to be repeatedly pulled into line by ORC chair Gretchen Robertson, as they continued to interrupt some of the councillors as they each shared their opinion on the controversial issue.

Read more: ‘Astronomical cost’ - concerns raised about Land & Water Plan

ORC will decide on October 23 whether to publicly notify the controversial plan, but it was the same five minority regional councillors, including Michael Laws and Gary Kelliher, who lost again against the majority seven who wanted to push on with it.

Chief executive Richard Saunders, chair Gretchen Robertson, a Rūnaka representative and its policy and planning manager met the Minister for the Environment Penny Simmonds and Forestry and Agriculture Minister Todd McClay in Wellington last Thursday (September 19).

Last week the ORC delegation was expecting to present to ministers their reasons why they wanted to continue with the plan, but the meeting took a different turn.

“Ministers did not take up the offer for ORC to present the key themes from the response to their request for more information,” Richard said, in his report to council yesterday.

“Instead, they relayed the following key messages:

• The government still believes strongly that we should pause our plan process.
• Government has told councils they can progress with plans if they choose to but there is a strong preference that this does not happen.
• They are still developing ideas for the new NPS-FM.” (National Policy Statement - Freshwater management). 

Richard said the government’s ideas could not be shared as they need to go to Cabinet first, but they are working to a timetable of delivering by the middle of next year. 

Ministers also indicated they would work with officials to try and provide ORC with more information on this process. 

“There was some discussion about the ability through the freshwater planning process to implement [a] new government direction - they would like to reduce the cost burden for councils associated with plan making, recognising the investment from ORC on the plan to date.”

Richard said there was an offer from ministers to work with ORC if there were specific issues in Otago that needed to be resolved should the plan not be notified.

No details were discussed about what those things may be.

ORC has already spent $18M on its draft plan, and a recent report to the minister estimated the costs of additional plan changes at $2.3M to $2.4M each over two years, with the option of financial assistance available.

Read more: Water improvement ‘a long time journey’ - ORC

PHOTO: Wānaka App