Marlborough’s controversial environment plan finally enacted

After nine years of debate and legal challenges, the Proposed Marlborough Environment Plan has finally made it over the line ‒ well, most of it.

The Marlborough District Council’s major planning document, which was finished in 2020, had been operative but not officially enacted during an appeals process.

On Thursday morning, the council’s Environment and Planning Committee approved all provisions not currently under appeal in the Environment Court to come into effect on July 9.

The council hailed the announcement as a “milestone for the management of natural and physical resources in Marlborough”.

Mayor Nadine Taylor said the Proposed Marlborough Environment Plan (PMEP) would provide certainty and simplify Marlborough’s resource management framework.

“I’m pleased to announce we now have a single integrated plan for Marlborough,” Taylor said.

“It’s a culmination of a lot of hard work by council and the community over an extended period.

“The numerous submissions and appeals have played a vital role in reaching this point, allowing us to move forward with implementing a plan which balances the sustainable utilisation of resources with the necessary environmental protections.”

The plan consolidated three different management plans into one, to be referred to as the final authority on what people could do with their land and how it could be developed.

It would also help Marlburians understand how they could use public resources such as freshwater and coastal areas.

The road to enacting the plan had been long and bumpy.

The public was first notified about the PMEP in June 2016.

A lengthy consultation process between 2017 and 2019 drew 1300 public submissions and 17,500 submission points for and against the plan.

The final version released in 2020 was controversial. In 2020, the council’s former coastal scientist and senior lecturer of environmental management at Lincoln University, Steve Urlich, said the plan threatened the ecological stability of the Marlborough Sounds seabed.

There were 51 appeals filed in the Environment Court, by eight Crown entities, seven non-governmental organisations, 14 marine farmers, 12 corporations, four iwi authorities and six individuals.

The council had spent the last four years resolving almost all the appeals through a mediation process, and 59 consent orders for the PMEP had been issued by the Environment Court.

Only one appeal, about coastal occupation charges, was argued before the Environment Court. The court issued a ruling on May 16, 2025, ordering changes, but since the changes had not been finalised, that section of the PMEP would come into effect at a later date.

The regional coastal plan would have to be signed off by Minister of Conservation Tama Potaka before taking effect.