Jane Nees BOP Regional Councillor www.janenees.co.nz

Work at the Bay of Plenty Regional Council is really getting back into gear.

Council is making decisions on its draft Ten Year Plan so that it can go out for public consultation. This decision-making is where the rubber hits the road for councillors. Hard calls need to be made. The challenges facing us as a region are many and balancing necessity, desirability, affordability and priority is very difficult – especially when we are in a dynamic environment where future change is a given. However, the Ten Year Plan is reviewed every three years and each year Council considers its Annual Plan so that there is some flexibility to make changes to policies and programmes in response to changing circumstances.

This is quite different to the decision-making process for the Regional Policy Statement (RPS) which is reaching end of a very long statutory development process with final deliberations underway. The process started in 2008 with the development of a discussion document on the region's significant resource management issues, with options for addressing them in the next RPS. Comments were received on this document and fed into a Draft RPS which was made available for informal public comment in 2010. In 2010, the comments received were fed into a Proposed RPS and formal submissions were sought. Submissions and further submissions were received in 2011 and hearings were undertaken. Final deliberations are now underway and as a member of the Hearings Committee I feel the weight of the decisions being made because they will have a huge impact on the future of our region.

Policies being grappled with include how are we best to manage allocation of water in the future in a way that is sustainable and fair. Similarly, how to reduce discharge of nutrients into Lake Rotorua through land management and land use change, balancing all communities of interest. It is really hard stuff and is very important for the future well-being of our environment and our community. These decisions will ultimately have an impact on individuals and there are often conflicting views on which is the right path to take. It is impossible to please everyone and hard calls need to be made in the greater good, taking a long term, strategic view while trying to be fair to all.

This has been the hardest decision-making I have been involved in – truly where the rubber meets the road!

If you have any views on this or any other issue, please contact me on [email protected] or ring me on 07 579-5150. Or you can check out my website at www.janenees.co.nz