Ashburton To Push Back On Water Committee Structure

Wednesday, 17 September 2025, 2:17 pm
Article: Jonathan Leask - Local Democracy Reporter

Ashburton’s mayor plans to stand firm on demanding the community has a seat at the table for managing the region's water resources. 

Mayor Neil Brown confirmed the council will be holding “a discussion” with Environment Canterbury later this month on establishing new local leadership groups for freshwater management in the next council triennium. 

Brown was the lone dissenting voice when the Canterbury Mayoral Forum backed the proposed new model of eight local leadership groups based on catchment areas in May. 

The upcoming discussion between the council, Ecan and rūnanga representatives will be a closed-door meeting, which an ECan spokesperson explained “enables open, honest, and constructive discussion between the parties”. 

That was not the case when ECan chairperson Craig Pauling and key staff provided a progress update to the Selwyn District Council in an open public meeting on September 10. 

Brown’s biggest opposition is demanding to have “the four-legged stool” for the new leadership groups, which would include community representation alongside the district council, ECan, and Mana Whenua on the groups. 

The proposed new model has eight local leadership groups set up based on geographic catchment areas for the major rivers in the region, the Fresh Water Management Units (FMU). 

The FMUs are contentious as they were drafted as part of the regional policy statement that the regional council had to stop working on due to a central Government edict. 

Brown said the FMUs “have not been consulted on, discussed, or agreed, but come out as being okay to use”. 

“That’s not what we want.” 

His preference is retaining council boundaries and having community representation. 

Without those, the council may not wish to proceed with the joint committees at all, he said. 

“If we are not getting buy-in from our community, there is no point. 

“We don’t want to disenfranchise people. 

“We want to make this work, but we need the right people around the table,” Brown said. 

At the Selwyn meeting, Pauling said community representation is still on the table. 

“Whether that's through formal committee membership or is it through a forum that the local leadership group runs.” 

There was recognition that major rivers like the Rakaia and Rangitata that sit between districts didn’t have their own focus, and using the FMU catchment model “means that districts and rūnanga need to work together a little bit more across those big rivers, but that's ultimately a good thing”. 

Pauling acknowledged in cases like the Waihora-Rakaia River zone there will be multiple councils (Ashburton, Selwyn, and Christchurch), multiple rūnanga (Taumutu, Tūāhuriri, Arowhenua, Ngāti Wheke, Koukourarata, Wairewa), and ECan at the table, as well as whatever community representative provision is agreed. 

“It’s going to be more complex. 

“These rivers, these catchments are complex, and the issues are complex.” 

The resourcing for the new groups would be the same as it was with the water zone committees, Pauling said. 

Councillor Lydia Gliddon said she wasn’t sure “the framework is entirely right with the new structure”.

“It’s also unrealistic to have 20 members in a group because you're not going to get anything done.

“I'm wary of establishing another layer of bureaucracy that won't have good outcomes on the ground for people and landowners.”

-LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.

© Scoop Media

Local Democracy Reporting

Content from the Local Democracy Reporting (LDR) service is published by Scoop as a registered New Zealand Media Outlet LDR Partner.