Horizons Regional Council’s Rachel Keedwell: Have your say on freshwater plan

Horizons Regional Council is on the journey to implementing the Government's Essential Freshwater package. Photo / NZME

OPINION

We have had a couple of rounds of consultation lately and I would like to thank everyone who has contributed to those processes. It is incredibly valuable to us when you take the time to engage and tell us your thoughts.

For the regional transport services review, we had more than 800 submissions containing many ideas and suggestions. They will be really useful for formulating our blueprint for what public transport could look like across the region. This helps us build on the new services already in place to see how we can expand our network and services to best serve our communities.

We also carried out pre-engagement consultation for the Long-Term Plan. This is not something we have done before and the idea was to check in with the community about our proposed direction before we fully embarked on drafting the plan.

We had more than 150 people respond to that consultation and the feedback was largely supportive of the direction we are heading. The rankings people provided for the topics we are considering helped confirm community priorities and suggest we have not missed any major issues.

The other big piece of consultation about to get under way is a roadshow for our Oranga Wai Our Freshwater Future work. This is a continuation of the work in response to the Essential Freshwater reforms enacted under the Labour Government.

We are expected to have our new freshwater plan written and ready to go by December 2024. There have been several rounds of engagement with this work, seeking views on the visions and values for freshwater in the region.

We have brought together a range of science and modelling to identify possible targets for the water quality of our region’s rivers to help achieve the visions and values the community identified in the prior rounds of consultation. So if the feedback was we want rivers that are swimmable all year round, what work needs to be done to make that happen?

There are lots of maps and data available so you can explore scenarios and how they apply to the rivers near you. We are seeking feedback about the level of change necessary to achieve the identified water quality targets and, in light of this, if the visions are ambitious enough and if the visions are reasonable.

This is your opportunity to help formulate how freshwater is managed in our region. There are further rounds of consultation to go, such as when we have a draft version of the plan. But at that point, the numbers and targets around attributes like nutrients and bacteria will start to firm up, so if you have a view on this, get involved now so your view helps shape our plan.

More information about the consultation process and the roadshow is at freshwater.horizons.govt.nz.

Dr Rachel Keedwell is chairwoman of Horizons Regional Council.