Sorting our consent backlog has been Environment Canterbury’s number one priority over the last 18 months.

Today, the last of more than 1200 consents that had built up as ‘legacy consents’ has now been addressed.

For context, 15 months ago we had 1225 consents that were lodged before 1 August 2023 and dating back to 2002. Now all these legacy consents have either been decided or have an action plan in place for getting to a decision.

“We couldn’t have done this without the tremendous effort of our staff/kaimahi and the applicants and their consultants who have worked with us to have their consents sorted,” says Environment Canterbury Chair Craig Pauling.

“Over the last year and a half, as we worked on the backlog, we have put in place several initiatives – from hiring more staff, introducing new processes and automation, to working with consultants on lodging quality applications. It’s great to see that all this hard work has paid off.”

And while we’re pleased to see this accomplishment, we’re also making sure to keep the momentum going and not losing track of all the new work coming in and the importance of continuing to improve our overall statutory timeframe compliance.

As of 28 November 2024, our overall consenting timeframe compliance for this financial year is 48.4 per cent. This is well ahead of where we were less than six months ago when our compliance for 2023/24 was 26 per cent.

“With legacy consents being addressed, we can now focus solely on the new applications and how we can further improve consenting delivery.”

This won’t be easy, given the increase in new applications coming in - in October, we received 35 per cent more new applications than the month before. And we know that this pressure will continue, with 2443 consents due for renewal over the next four years.

Work is already underway on how best to manage these renewals coming in – we are focusing on individual catchments and reaching out to consultants and communities to ensure they start planning their consent renewals well ahead and come and talk to us early.

© Scoop Media