Rhea Dasent: Utilities burden for landowners

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It's a burden for landowners to host public infrastructure on their property and most have been installed in the past without compensation.

Utilities companies expect landowners to be prepared to operate their farming activities around public infrastructure, and to have work crews on their property.

In today's health and safety climate, letting crews on farms is not something that farmers take lightly.

District plans have rules that regulate what utilities companies can do as permitted and what needs resource consent. This can have a significant impact on landowners.

Federated Farmers agrees that the operation, maintenance and repair of network utilities is necessary. In the case of electricity, washing or repainting pylons, trimming trees or re-tensioning wires are activities that we accept are needed to maintain power supply.

The replacement or upgrading of infrastructure is a completely different situation and should not be treated by the same permissive council rules.

Government rules do allow for the replacement of structures that support transmission lines so long as they are within height and width limits, and a pole is not allowed to be replaced with a tower.

Councils should not be writing rules that are even more lenient.

Replacing something like an underground pipe can be a seriously big job whereby whole paddocks or areas of the farm may be taken over and dug up and the farmer is unable to use them.

Construction can cause damage or destruction to pasture, soil, gates and fence lines, and crops.

It also causes livestock disturbances and a change in farming practice, like being unable to graze particular paddocks or continue with irrigation.

Then there's the storage of construction materials and machinery on the farmer's property.

Landowners should feel that councils will not give utilities companies carte blanch to do what they want, when so many of our activities are highly regulated.

- Rhea Dasent is a senior policy adviser for Federated Farmers.