Consultation on provisions in the Proposed Southland Water and Land Plan

Overview

The Resource Management (Consenting and Other System Changes) Amendment Act 2025 introduced a new power for the Minister for the Environment (now delegated to the Minister Responsible for RMA Reform) to make regulations to modify or remove local plan provisions that negatively impact economic growth, development capacity or employment.

Read more about this regulation-making power.

Investigation into planning provisions within the Proposed Southland Water and Land Plan  

The Government is consulting on the investigation report commissioned by Minister for RMA Reform, Hon Chris Bishop, into several provisions within the Proposed Southland Water and Land Plan (the Plan), covering: 

• Changes to better align the requirements of farm plans for properties between 20 and 50 hectares to the recently amended Resource Management (Freshwater Farm Plans) Regulations 2023.  
• Enabling the removal of gravel for protection purposes where it poses a threat to infrastructure such as bridges and flood protection structures.  
• Enabling consenting provisions for activities such as the construction of wetlands and other physical mitigations to improve water quality including sediment traps and treatment of subsurface drainage. 

These changes are being considered under section 360I of the Resource Management Act 1991. Section 360I enables the Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, Hon Chris Bishop, to recommend to the Governor-General to make regulations that remove or modify local plan provisions where they are found to negatively affect economic growth, development capacity, or employment.    

The investigation concluded that some of these provisions could have negative impacts on economic growth and identified how the provisions could be modified or removed from the Plan to alleviate those negative impacts.  

The Government is now considering whether to make regulations to modify these provisions in the Plan. 

Read the investigation report.

Why we are consulting 

Before making these regulations, the Minister Responsible for RMA Reform must consult parties who are likely to be affected. The Ministry for Cities, Environment, Regions and Transport is undertaking this consultation on behalf of the Minister.