Review of the 1995 RPS

Measuring Up 2005

The Wellington Regional Council began the review of the 1995 Regional Policy Statement (RPS) with the second State of the Environment Report – Measuring Up 2005 – in December 2005.

Measuring Up 2005 reported on the state of the environment, what was being done to achieve the 1995 RPS objectives, and how well the objectives in the RPS had been achieved.

Our Region – Their Future

The second stage of the review was the discussion document Our Region – Their Future, released in May 2006.

Our Region – Their Future reported on the success of the 1995 RPS, changes to the issues since it was published, and posed questions about whether resources need to be managed differently.

Topic reports

In June 2007, GWRC released a set of topic reports with draft objectives, policies and methods. These reports covered regional form, biodiversity, landscape and heritage, natural hazards, air quality, iwi resource management, energy, freshwater, the coastal environment, land waste and minerals. We received a number of comments which helped us prepare the draft Regional Policy Statement, 2008. Topic reports are available on request.

Draft Regional Policy Statement 2008

GWRC released the draft Regional Policy Statement in March 2008. The aim of this non-statutory document was to open discussion with all interested parties and receive feedback.

A total of 107 groups, organisations and individuals responded to the draft Regional Policy Statement during the submission period (10 March and 16 May 2008). Between them they contributed close to 1400 submission points on the draft. Key themes to emerge from submissions are noted here.

These submissions helped GWRC to review and revise content for the proposed RPS – further information about key changes can be found here.

A copy of the draft Regional Policy Statement 2008 can be downloaded here.