Media release June 18th 2013

[statement from David Thornton}

Council responses to Feedback on draft Unitary Plan to be made available to individual submitters

The Auckland Council is to respond to all submitters to the draft Unitary Plan prior to the formal notification of the Plan.

At many public meetings on the Plan there were frequent calls for the Council to respond to the feedback being given by residents and ratepayers.

At the time Council staff said there would be no responses given as this was informal consultation.

I raised this issue with the Council because it was my belief that, even though the Council referred to ‘informal’ consultation, it must still conform to the process for consultation set out in the Local Government Act.

Council’s Chief Executive, Doug McKay, has now confirmed to me that the Council will write to those who gave feedback advising them how to access information on the Council’s response to their feedback.

Mr McKay advised me that this process will comply with the requirements for consultation set out in the Local Government Act.

Due to the amount of time needed to process the 22,700 items of feedback it is unlikely that the responses will be available until September.

I believe that while this process does not completely meet the requirements of consultation it will enable submitters to see responses before they move on to making formal submissions on the Unitary plan after it is notified.

The notification date for the Plan has not been settled but it may have to be postponed until after the election due to a potential time problem for the Council in preparing an analysis of the Plan for auditing prior to notification.

Ends.

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