Selwyn’s mayor has sent a please explain to the Government on why her council has been snubbed from the next phase of the RMA replacement.

Selwyn District Council submitted on the Planning and Natural Environment Bill, which is set to replace the Resource Management Act, but was not invited to speak to its submission to the select committee.

Mayor Lydia Gliddon said it was disappointing not to be invited to speak to the submission at the select committee hearings and the council is asking for an explanation.

“The fastest growing district in the country, and we don't get to speak to the select committee about RMA changes? I think that is really detrimental to the outcome that they're looking for.”

The mayor acknowledged that every council, and plenty of other organisations and individuals, submitted and asked to speak, with tight timeframes to work with, but said Selwyn’s point of view needed to be heard.

“There are big implications for us here,” Gliddon said.

Selwyn has a large geographic area, traversing all manner of urban and rural environmental issues, topped off by its continued rapid growth.

“Urban, rural, high country, coastal, we have got it all.”

The Environment committee secretariat confirmed that across the 62 hours of oral submissions, which started on March 2 and concludes on Wednesday, there are 17 North Island councils – including eight regional or unitary councils, and nine from the South Island, including five regional or unitary councils.

The Canterbury Mayoral Forum will also be heard.

The letter sent to all submitters who were not invited to speak was provided to Local Democracy Reporting by the Environment Committee.

It stated that the committee “received a high volume of requests from submitters to be invited to hearings”.

“The members have determined that they will not be able to hear from everybody in the timeframes that they have available for these bills.”

Around half of the 62 hours were “allocated to hearing from 130 individuals and organisations that MPs have specifically identified that they would like to speak to”.

“The remainder of the hearing time will be made up of a randomly selected sample of submitters to bolster the MPs' ability to speak with as broad a range of people as possible.”

By Jonathan Leask