Besieged ECan faces big challenges

OPINION: Environment Canterbury is an organisation under siege.

After a report found that ECan had the worst record of any of the nation's 85 councils in handling resource consents within legal time limits, the Environment Minister took the rare step of publicly lambasting it in Parliament. He described its performance as hopeless, gave ECan 60 days to say how it would fix the problem and he did not rule out sacking the council. Nick Smith's attack would have been music to the ears of ECan's numerous critics, especially in the business and farming sectors.

But even within ECan there have been clear signs of division, frustration and dissatisfaction since the last local government election. Last July, for example, the simple task of picking two representatives for a Regional Governance Group took a full hour, with one councillor saying that ECan lacked "nous" and another that it simply was not working.

Again during the current term, long-standing complaints by southern territorial authorities within ECan's area about the council's lack of responsiveness to their concerns has prompted talk of forming a breakaway regional council or even a unitary authority.

ECan and the Christchurch City Council did work together on the Urban Development Strategy. But last year's battle over landscape and land development on Banks Peninsula suggests that the traditional tension between the two bodies, at its worst when former city mayor Garry Moore made it clear he wanted ECan to disappear, will continue to simmer.

As for the general public, the fact that only 10 per cent reportedly can name the regional council chairman suggests at the very least that Canterbury residents are disinterested in ECan and this apathy should itself be a major concern for the organisation.

The regional council did defend itself over its resource consents record. It said that the report placing it at the tail end of the country was historical and that, since last July, 67 per cent of consents were processed on time.

It also pleaded extenuating circumstances, saying it had far more consents than other councils which required public consultation, along with far more consent applications relating to water.

This did not placate Smith, who told Parliament that it was not just water-related applications where ECan was not performing. Nor will it satisfy those business or farming critics whose projects have been held back and who believe that ECan harbours a greenie anti-development agenda and culture.

One of the legislative functions of all councils is to promote the economic well-being of their regions, as well as the environment, but the suspicion remains that ECan has been a barrier to development and growth.

The regional council has attracted criticism for reasons other than its consent record. Among these was the Target Pest fiasco, where the council was castigated both because it was in the position of competing with the private sector and because of the financial loss which ensued.

Even if the southern councils do not ultimately break away, ECan faces the prospect of structural changes from other sources.

The Government has signalled that it will be taking the lead in reforming New Zealand's fresh water management, a move which implies that the Cabinet is not satisfied that regional councils like ECan, for which water is a major function, have handled their responsibilities in a timely fashion.

The Government is also contemplating setting up an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as part of its reform of the resource management framework.

At the very least, the formation of an EPA would remove or lessen the environmental functions of regional councils. But one possibility which has been mooted by Government advisers is to abolish regional councils altogether, dividing their functions between territorial councils and the new EPA. Another, following the Auckland super-city model, might be a unitary authority around Christchurch.

None of these structural changes might occur, but ECan still has a mighty challenge ahead of it. The regional council must reclaim the goodwill of the region, which it has clearly lost, by demonstrating its relevance and by dispelling the notion that it exists as a block to economic progress.

- © Fairfax NZ News