Catchment/Network Management Planning and Consenting - A Canterbury Perspective

Canterbury has experienced a major shift in view point with regards to integrating urban stormwater management over the last 10 years to be more in line with practices occurring in other regions of NZ. Much of this change has been driven by Environment Canterbury (ECan) via their regional planning framework. The most significant change for the Canterbury Territorial Authorities (TA’s) is the requirement under the operative and proposed regional plans to obtain catchment/ network stormwater discharge consents for their urban areas serviced by a reticulated stormwater infrastructure.

This paper will describe the regional planning framework’s development, discuss the planning initiatives used by the ECan expedite district councils to prepare stormwater management plans (SMPs) and catchment/network discharge consent applications. Also discussed will be the specific issues relating to SMP’s and catchment / network stormwater consents granted in the Canterbury region to date.