Canterbury land and water plan

"We believe the Land and Water Regional Plan addresses certain key requirements set out in the Ministerial Terms of Reference," says Environment Canterbury commissioner Peter Skelton.

"These include having a simple and robust regional planning framework for water, a plan that is easy to understand and administer and one that reduces the number of resource consents required.

"It's also important that the LWRP allows for the implementation of the Canterbury Water Management Strategy. To achieve this we've heavily involved the CWMS Regional and Zone Committees in the development phase."

Input from other stakeholders such as Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu, along with a rūnanga working group established through the Tuia programme, has also been a priority over the past year.

Skelton adds that draft versions of the LWRP have been publicly available and it has produced substantial informal comment which was then considered and, where appropriate, incorporated into the LWRP.

"Now that we've agreed it should happen, notification of the proposed LWRP will happen on 11 August. This will lead onto a submission period where people can formally have their say."

Once notification is completed, all the rules within the LWRP will have immediate legal effect.