Otago Regional Council’s (ORC) annual report reflects a year of change, a refresh of the organisation’s strategic direction, and a focus on supporting community-led environmental initiatives, ORC chair Gretchen Robertson says.

She said the ORC Annual Report 2023-2024, released last month, showed that while it had been a busy year, there was more to do.

“Our focus was not only on delivering efficient services to the people of Otago, but on supporting community-led environmental initiatives for positive outcomes,” Gretchen said.

It had placed “a strong emphasis on delivering a long-term plan which achieves organisational efficiencies, ensuring we give value for ratepayers’ money while continuing to sustain healthy and connected communities.”

“We’re proud to highlight ORC’s accomplishments in hazard resilience, significant growth in bus patronage, navigational safety, regional civil defence coordination, environmental science, biosecurity, and regulatory activities,” she said.

Gretchen highlighted ORC’s environmental monitoring and regulatory work over the year, where staff completed 1,411 compliance checks, including consent audits, dairy inspections, and forestry site visits, and the pollution hotline handled 1,095 incidents, with 101 formal enforcement actions taken.

Despite the positives, a substantial number of targets were missed.

The annual report outlined a total 79 targets sought in service provision and while 48 were ‘fully achieved’ and 5 ‘partially achieved’, 25 targets were ‘not achieved’.

ORC chief executive Richard Saunders said of the 25 targets not achieved, a number were linked to the deadline for the final delivery of reports, reviews and plans, many of which had since been completed and were pending formal delivery.

“Much of the work was completed within the financial year however we did not meet the target as set out in the service levels,” he said. “...these measures are something the community can hold us to account on so we will continue to have a strong focus…on meeting them.”

Gretchen said climate change remained a crucial focus area for the ORC for the year ahead.

“This year, councillors endorsed the draft Strategic Climate Action Plan, and we’re now looking forward to seeking community input on this important initiative,” she said.

Its work on a variety of natural hazards adaptation programmes, as well as climate resilience projects for our flood schemes, are also major focuses.

ORC has had less success with its plans for freshwater. Last month, after months of debate between ORC, Otago farmers, and government ministers, the government amended the Resource Management Act Amendment Bill (currently before parliament) to restrict councils’ ability to notify new freshwater rules until the new National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management (NPS-FM) is in place.

Read more: Government intervenes on freshwater plans

Under the government’s amendment, ORC now won’t be able to notify a land and water plan until December 2025 or until the new NPS-FM is in place.

Find ORC’s full annual report here.

PHOTO: Wānaka App