2 Introduction

The applications were lodged in July 2005 and notified in September 2005. The hearing commenced on 12 June 2006, and was adjourned on 12 December 2006 after 70 hearing days. An interim decision was released some seven months later on 22 June 2007. The interim decision granted the applications sought by TPL, but did not specify the conditions on which they were granted. The “conditions hearing” took a further eight days between 12 January 2007 and 12 February 2007, with decisions on the conditions being released on 5 August 2008. A summary timeline of the hearing process is included as Appendix 1 to this report.

The interim decision was appealed by six parties (two of which are closely related and filed the one appeal document). These appeals have yet to be heard. At the time of writing this report at least one appellant – the Department of Conservation – has reached agreement with TPL and does not intend to pursue its appeal. TPL also lodged an appeal to some of the conditions of the consents granted.

TPL said that the hearing was relatively costly for them compared with similar resource consent hearings, such as those for the upgraded Arnold River hydro power scheme and the Kaiwara and Mahingerangi wind farms. They budgeted $5,000 per hearing day for their costs alone (which do not include the costs incurred by MDC and subsequently charged to TPL). Their actual costs were about $22,000 per day. The total cost of the hearing to TPL (again excluding MDC costs) was budgeted at $1.2 million; actual costs were $3.2 million. Additionally, MDC processing costs charged to TPL exceeded $2 million.

It is against this background that this report sets out to determine “what went well and what did not go well” with this consent process and that could usefully be applied to the processing of large scale consent applications generally.