Waimea Weekly Locally Owned and Operated
Wednesday 15 November 2023
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The consenting clause causing a headache MAX FRETHEY,
Local Democracy Reporter
A Māpua woman claims earthworks on neighbouring properties are flooding their land, though her neighbour and council staff are adamant the work is allowed, except for one council stormwater advisor. The issue Melanie Drewery says she hasn’t seen any serious flooding on her property since she completed drainage works in 2004. But now she says she can’t work her back field over winter because the ground is too wet for animals to graze. The only thing that’s changed, she says, is the earthworks on two neighbouring properties. “We’ve had to sell our cows. We’ve gone down to 10 sheep now, we had 50 at one point.” Material from the Stafford Drive slip that closed the road for months after the August 2022 weather event was taken to the two neighbouring properties when council cleared it in December. Melanie says that the earthworks altered the proper-
ties’ drainage and stormwater is now diverted onto her land – an effect she thinks would have been avoided if a resource consent had been needed. The rules The works were allowed to take place as a permitted activity – on Rural 1-zoned land, you can raise a hectare of land by up to a metre – without a resource consent, provided it met all the other conditions. However, Melanie points to one clause of the Tasman Resource Management Plan (TRMP) that says earthworks cannot be undertaken as a permitted activity if it results in the diversion of floodwaters. Her interpretation of the rule is that it doesn’t matter how much floodwater is diverted, it would be grounds for needing a resource consent. “I think [the landowner] needed resource consent and I think the reason [council] rushed it through is because they had to get [Stafford Drive] open before summer,” she says.
SEE PAGE 5
Another cracking programme at Waimea Kindergarten is teaching life cycles to its children with supplies donated by local families. The kindy were donated eggs and an incubator for their care and have since hatched three baby chicks, according to teacher Kath McCauley. “[The children] are learning the importance of caring for living things,” she says. Kath says the children were also building confidence in taking responsibility and asking questions to consolidate their learning. “One of the teachers [Rebekah Senior] is going to take the chickens home when they’ve grown a bit older.” Pictured, Louis Kirker, 4, with one of the three yet-to-be-named baby chickens born at the centre. Photo: Gordon Preece.
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