Environment Court releases interim plan decision

An interim decision on the proposed Southland Water and Land Plan has been received from the Environment Court.

Judge Borthwick, two commissioners (Mrs Paine and Mrs Bartlett) and a special advisor (Russell Howie) began to hear appeals to Topic A (the objectives and physiographic zone policies) in June.

Environment Southland staff and appeals team will be taking time to carefully consider the findings that have been made and won’t be in a position to answer specific questions about its contents until January.

This is an interim decision, which provides some direction for the next part of the plan appeals. Final decisions on the plan will not be made until the remainder of the appeal topics have been heard next year (Topic B).

The interim decision is available here.

All information and documents relating to the appeals is available on our website – www.es.govt.nz/waterandland.

The proposed Southland Water and Land Plan seeks to address activities that are known to have a significant effect on water quality, such as land use intensification, urban discharges, winter grazing and stock access to waterways.