by John Lawson
In a follow up to the large 25 September 2015 meeting held at the Raglan Sunset Motel to discuss the limited outcomes and high administrative cost of Regional Council’s West Coast Zone, the man with overall responsibility for the zones, Stu Husband, visited Raglan for the second time in his life on Friday. He said all the zone committees were working well, with the exception of Coromandel and West Coast Zones. Stu seemed to agree that the populations of these zones were too small to support the administrative costs of a zone committee. Instead he thought direct input to Regional Council could be more effective. To that end he offered to arrange a public meeting in Raglan, with about half the Regional Councillors, at the end of January.
On his way over, Stu had looked at two of the contentious sites, which are either side of the divvy. To the south he had seen the Ed Hillary Hope Native Forest Reserve, to which Council had contributed about $500,000. Stu was unable to say more about the Comvita weedkiller spraying on 27ha of it, despite WRC Chair Paula Southgate, saying on 3 October, “The staff are looking at this. I will have a response to you within a week.”
Stu had also gone up Cogswell Valley Rd to the north, to see the 5 square kilometres of Vela pine forest being felled. Although Whaingaroa Environmental Defence had sent him suggestions for actions to minimise and monitor the sediment, he was unable to say much about it, except that it could be discussed in the meeting at the end of January.
