Record number of submissions for partnership proposal

The Rotorua Lakes Council has received a record number of submissions regarding its controversial Te Arawa Partnership Proposal.

A total of 1899 submissions have been received by the Rotorua Lakes Council for its controversial Te Arawa partnership proposal.

It is the most submissions the council has received for a single issue after public submissions closed on Friday.

Of the submissions received during the past six weeks, 736 were made online.

Four petitions were also received, one against the proposal with 1370 signatures - one with 250 signatures asking for the council to consider a different "Democratic Governance Model" which was submitted - and two in support of the proposal with 33 and 27 signatures respectively.

The proposal could see the establishment of an iwi board outside the council structure to replace the former Te Arawa Standing Committee.

Te Arawa would appoint or elect a board of up to 14 people with two representatives - with voting rights - to sit on the council's operations and monitoring committee and on its strategy, policy and finance committee, with one on the chief executive performance committee and another representative on Resource Management Act hearings panels.

Council chief executive Geoff Williams said he was pleased with the high level of public engagement.

"We've received some very good commentary from people and have had a lot of feedback on not only the proposed model, but also the other models which were considered by council and were part of the consultation.

"People have suggested variations of all of the models, as well as putting forward some completely different ideas. All of these will be looked at and analysed by our staff and the petitions will also be added to the mix for councillors' consideration," Mr Williams said.

More than 250 people attended public information sessions held to provide further detail to help people form an opinion and make submissions.

"The feedback we've had from many people is that these sessions were very useful."

Mr Williams said all submissions and petitions would go to councillors and be made available to the public on the council's website by the end of this week.

More than 160 submitters asked to speak to councillors at hearings, the first scheduled for April 30.

Councillors are expected to deliberate and make a decision about the proposal at an extraordinary council meeting on May 26.