Consents backlog whittled down but some waiting ten years
Tue, 1st Sep 2026 (Today)
A resource consent backlog -- some dating back a decade -- at the West Coast Regional Council has been whittled down from 199 to 43, mainly due to withdrawal of applications.
A report to the Environmental Management Committee meeting tomorrow shows the council received 48 resource consent applications in the April-June quarter, 30 of which were processed within the statutory timeframe.
The council received 173 applications between July 2025 and June 2026, and 164 of them were approved.
The report said the council continues to work on a backlog of consent applications, some of which are over 10 years old.
"All applicants have been contacted, and the backlog has been reduced from 199 applications when the project began, to 43 through withdrawals of applications or provision of outstanding information (down from 91 last quarter).
"The remaining applications now have progression plans in place either to provide further information, written approval, or to proceed to notification," the report said.
This comes as former WCRC chairman Allan Birchfield has criticised the council for not processing mining consent applications quickly enough.
At an Environmental Management Committee meeting in June, Cr Birchfield said gold production on the West Coast could suffer if consents were not processed faster.
Regulatory and policy manager Matt Smith defended the council's record, saying it had received 50 applications in the January to March quarter, nine of which were returned as incomplete and six were withdrawn.
