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FEBRUARY 27, 2025
Councils to share load By Mary Anne Gill
Waipā, Ōtorohanga and Waitomo district councils have agreed to share regulatory services staff in the latest hint Waikato local authorities are thinking “bigger picture”. The three councils signed an over-arching regulatory shared services agreement last month. The details were shared with Ōtorohanga and Waitomo councillors this week. Not covered in the agreement is animal control which has its own shared services deal. Sharing building consents workload could soon follow. An existing agreement between Ōtorohanga and Waipā for environmental health – water and food quality, waste disposal, housing and vermin control – has been replaced by the new deal. Under the agreement, any one of the three councils can
request additional regulatory support from any of the other councils, on a cost recovery basis. A council can also offer spare capacity with building consent inspections and processing, compliance and enforcement investigations and response and resource consent processing. The savings come by not engaging external consultants and the agreed hourly rate is about 60 per cent of what they would usually cost. The agreement is nonbinding and only on offer if councils have spare capacity. Whether Waipā will take up the offer is unknown as staff no longer make “information only” reports available in council and/or council agendas. The District Growth Quarterly report, usually prepared by District Growth and Regulatory Services group manager Wayne Allan for the Strategic Planning
and Policy committee was always the go to place for that sort of information. The period from October 1 to December 31 would usually have been covered off in a report to the committee this month and include updates on growth cells, major resource consent applications, building consents, District Licensing Committee applications and quarterly statistics. The deal with Waitomo and Ōtorohanga would potentially have been included in that report. For a growth council like Waipā, the information was of value not only to media, but developers, businesses, retailers and chambers of commerce. The News has asked Waipā District Council for the regular Transportation and Property reports which used to go to Service Delivery and Finance committees. The request was
Tony Quickfall – Ōtorohanga
Wayne Allan – Waipā
Alex Bell - Waitomo
forwarded to the Local Government Official Information and Meetings (LGOIMA) Act team. Under the act the council has 20 working days to respond. Good Local Media has also asked for Allan’s quarterly report. Tony Quickfall, a former Waipā staffer now group manager Regulatory and Growth at Ōtorohanga council, reports this week his
council issued 30 resource consents between July 1 and December 31. The council approved 55 building consents in the six month period including 22 at Waikeria Prison. Work at Waikeria Prison has kept his staff busy. More than 2000 inspections have been undertaken and 183 building consents issued over five years, he reported to his councillors. Waitomo Strategy and
Environment general manager Alex Bell told his councillors he hoped to see wider collaboration for building consents across a range of councils. “This collaboration is looking at how we can share resources… for overflow processing of building consents,” the Te Awamutu born and raised Waikato University law graduate and environmental planner said in his five-page report.
Firefighters deal to Ōhaupō blaze
By Roy Pilott
Dairy farmer Andrew Reymer was full of praise for firefighters – but less for New Zealand Rail - after fire broke out beside a track bordering his property this week. Eighteen firefighters and five appliances went to the scene at Ōhaupō late Monday afternoon to deal with a fire which had stretched to 200 metres and had jumped the
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tracks. Reymer dialled 111 after being alerted to the fire by a neighbour and said firefighters from Te Awamutu and Pirongia were on the scene quickly. Te Awamutu’s senior station officer Danny Smith said further checks would be made at the scene on Tuesday after this edition went to press. He said the vegetation in the area was
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particularly dry and it was likely the fire was ignited by a spark from a train. “We’ve not had that many vegetation fires this season – but there is a month to go,” he said. Reymer pointed the finger at New Zealand Rail, saying they were the worst of neighbours and should clean up the land alongside tracks. “They started mulching the gorse a while
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back and left a nice two inch layer of it to dry out – it is a problem waiting to happen,” he said. The farm is on peat land and the failure to deal with vegetation increased the risk of a fire engulfing peat and spreading. Had that happened, it would have compromised the track, Reymer said. • Go to teawamutunews.nz to see photos and a video of the firefighters at work.
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