Appeal Dropped After TDC, Wakatu Resolve Differences

By PAULIN, Alastair

Wakatu Incorporation has dropped its remaining High Court appeal against the Tasman District Council over access to Motueka water.

Wakatu’s chief executive, Keith Palmer, said the legal action had been halted after both sides resolved differences over the amount of water reserved for Maori land.

Tasman Mayor Richard Kempthorne said the agreement was not a compromise but the result of a working process between several levels of council and Wakatu staff that made it clear there was sufficient water for Maori land.

He said the outcome was significant for all landowners because the working party was “making sure that everyone who has irrigable land has water”.

The negotiations focused on ensuring the amount of water allocated in the Tasman Resource Management Plan for Maori perpetual lease land would be sufficient should Wakatu take it back.

Mr Palmer said both parties had agreed to a formula for water allocation after resolving the issues of how to define the land under question, how much of it was irrigable and how much water that type of land needed. Now that those issues were settled, he said, “it’s almost down to mathematics”.

Mr Palmer signed the memorandum of consent two weeks ago that halted Wakatu’s legal actions while both parties worked through details. Final negotiations will be concluded over the next few months.

Tasman District Council environment and planning manager Dennis Bush-King said the pace of negotiations had accelerated over the past several months in an effort to settle the dispute before a proposed High Court hearing in October.

Wakatu’s suit had come after its resource consent application for water from the Motueka aquifer was rejected by the council and an independent commissioner last year. Wakatu claimed the council had deliberately withheld information it needed to support its application.

The dispute stemmed from a test bore that the council had drilled on Wakatu land near Motueka. In return for drilling permission, the council was to share the test results with Wakatu, which it did only days before the suit was to have been heard in court. A second cause of action in the suit alleged a breach of contract by the council over the test bore and it is this complaint that has now been dropped.

Mr Palmer said the working party negotiations meant the council now had a better understanding of Wakatu’s concerns. He said the breakthrough was due, in part, to the council’s “different attitude after the election” and he gave the credit to Mr Kempthorne’s leadership.

“Richard has gone out with the attitude that he wanted it resolved.”

Mr Kempthorne said it was “very sensible that the appeals have been dropped” and that it had been a very good process.

(c) 2008 Nelson Mail, The. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.