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

The Bay of Plenty Regional Council has completed its deliberations on its draft Ten Year Plan.

A key issue identified in the plan was the leadership and management approach that council was planning to take in the Tauranga Harbour. Council received a number of submissions on this, and there was a lot of support for the inclusion of the Tauranga Harbour programme in the plan and for all the other activities council undertakes in the harbour as part of other council programmes, like Sustainable Land Management and Sustainable Coastal activities. As a result, council has not substantially altered its way forward in the Tauranga Harbour as a result of deliberations on our draft plan.

The submission process also showed that council wasn't clear enough in its plan about the full scope and cost of the activities it undertakes in the Tauranga Harbour. For 2012/13, the plan had a total budget of $3,736,459 for activities in the Tauranga Harbour. This included $427,690 for the Tauranga Harbour programme – this includes development of an action plan, sea lettuce management, funding the University of Waikato Coastal Chair, seed funding for a Tauranga Harbour symposium, and coordination of activities in the harbour across a range of activities and entities. Some people thought this was all that we were spending in the Tauranga Harbour and wanted council to do much more. But the plan had lots of other Tauranga Harbour work which was not so easy to recognise.

Under Sustainable Coastal Implementation it included $560,245 for estuary care (including mangrove management and revegetation projects), coastal margin restoration, support of care groups and participation in the Kaimai Catchments project. In the Sustainable Land Use implementation area, $827,600 is programmed in the Tauranga Harbour catchment and there is an additional $583,300 for biodiversity projects. Then there is $77,000 for biosecurity operations, $304,000 for monitoring, and $420,885 for pollution prevention activities. Lastly there is $535,700 for maritime operations – not including funding specifically for Rena response.

This investment is built on in subsequent years of the Ten Year Plan, recognising the importance of the Tauranga Harbour to our region.

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