Source: Radio New Zealand
Marlborough Mayor Nadine Taylor. RNZ / Tracy Neal
The Marlborough District Council wants the government to protect the region’s current environment plan, saying new planning and environmental laws threaten to blow up a decade of hard work.
Marlborough Mayor Nadine Taylor told the Environment Select Committee the region’s geography and climate were distinct and maintaining its environment plan would provide certainty to its primary producers.
The Select Committee heard submissions on the Planning Bill and Natural Environment Bill – which would together replace the Resource Management Act – on Wednesday.
“I’m calling on MPs to protect Marlborough’s status as its own planning region and to safeguard our new planning framework – both are critical to the region’s economy and long-term sustainability,” Taylor said.
The Marlborough District Council is a unitary authority, a single local government body that combines the responsibilities of both a regional council and a territorial authority, which means it manages both local services and regional resource management for the entire Marlborough region.
Taylor said the council managed those functions across more than one million hectares of land and one of New Zealand’s most intricate coastlines.
“Our geography, climate and the industries we support are distinct. Parliament has recognised these differences in previous reform processes – I am asking the Select Committee to confirm that Marlborough remains a separate planning region,” she said.
The region’s combined environment plan provided a stable and well-understood framework for the region’s industries – including viticulture, aquaculture, forestry, farming and tourism – should be deemed fully operative until 2033, Taylor said.
She asked for the select committee to include a provision in Schedule 1 of the Planning Bill to deem the Marlborough Environment Plan fully operative for a defined period or, alternatively, to have the ability to apply for a longer transition during which the plan would continue to apply.
“The Marlborough Environment Plan is the product of more than a decade of work with extensive involvement from iwi, industry and the community and an investment of around $10 million,” Taylor said.
“Industry partners have invested millions more. It’s a sophisticated and newly-settled planning framework that gives confidence to businesses and enables long-term investment decisions.”
Nearly 90 percent of New Zealand’s wine exports were produced in Marlborough and the plan’s rules about water use ensured the viticulture industry was viable.
“Our growers and commercial lenders rely on the stability of the current plan. Requiring us to unravel this new framework now would be unnecessarily destabilising,” she said.
“With proposed rates capping, councils face real limits on funding new planning processes. Marlborough ratepayers should not be asked to repeat a process they have just completed.”
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
