Anyone interested in the Bay of Plenty’s resources has just a week left to comment on the region’s most significant resource management document.

The deadline for submissions on the Proposed Regional Policy Statement (RPS) is Tuesday 8 February 2011. The document takes an integrated approach to addressing the sustainable management of the region’s natural and physical resources.

Under the Resource Management Act the Regional Policy Statement is required to identify the significant resource management issues for the Bay of Plenty region. It sets out how resources including air, freshwater, infrastructure, geothermal, land and soils will be managed in ways that provide for the present without compromising the ability of future generations to provide for their own needs.

Some significant resource management issues facing the region include improving the water quality of the Rotorua Te Arawa lakes, managing urban growth and the way we use land, making water available for horticulture and farming, protecting the region’s outstanding natural features and landscapes and the relationship of tangata whenua with the environment.

In developing the Proposed RPS, the regional council worked with district and city councils, iwi, community and industry stakeholders. A draft published earlier this year received more than 110 responses. Changes were made to reflect recent national and regional resource management thinking.

The Regional Council has also released a document that holds all Statutory Acknowledgements resulting from relevant Treaty of Waitangi settlement legislation in the region. The document is a compendium to the Operative Bay of Plenty Regional Policy Statement and other operative regional plans. Submissions are not required on the Statutory Acknowledgements.

The first Bay of Plenty Regional Policy Statement (1999) will remain operative until the second is approved.

Submissions must be with the Regional Council by 4pm Tuesday 8 February 2011. A summary of submissions will be available and further submissions will be called for prior to public hearings being held in July 2011.

Electronic and printed copies and further information is available on the Regional Council’s website www.envbop.govt.nz or by phoning 0800 884 880.

ENDS

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