Despite acknowledging that the Environment Court provides, “an appropriate test, and a backstop”, you profess to be offended by an elitist appeal team deciding, “that they know what is best for us, for New Zealand, and for the renewable energy sector, and are assembling a war chest to take the Project Hayes decision all the way to the Appeal Court.”

“Save Central” is an umbrella group representing established local organisations, including the Central Otago and Maniototo Environmental Societies, as well as many ordinary individuals from around New Zealand, united by their determination to protect Central Otago’s outstanding natural landscapes against inappropriate and irreversible industrialization for questionable benefits. It is presently coordinating an Environment Court appeal by those parties, against the CODC’s granting of a  resource consent for Project Hayes.

Despite your confidence in the CODC’s processes, there are very good reasons to doubt the decision made by the Hearings Panel with regard to Project Hayes. Central Otago residents may recall that Council’s own consultant Planner recommended that Project Hayes be declined consent and that the Chairman of the Panel, an experienced, senior lawyer, wrote a strong, dissenting opinion.

Subsequently, it has emerged that the Hearings Panel accepted Meridian Energy’s broad claims regarding the scale and efficacy of the wind resource on the Lammermoors, without requiring Meridian to produce data to backup its claims which are now being questioned. The accuracy and value of the photographic representations used by Meridian to minimize  the visual affects of the project is in dispute and other evidence presented to the Environment Court has raised doubts as to the rigor of Meridian’s scientific and engineering processes.

Save Central does not claim, “to know what is best for us, (or) for New Zealand”, but it is committed to ensuring, as best it might, that the decisions eventually made are soundly based and in the best interests of all New Zealanders. The fact that Save Central requires complete answers to legitimate questions and accurate and full explanations where doubt exists, before Meridian Energy is permitted to proceed with an immense and costly project, seems to us to be a proper exercise of civic responsibility. 

Your Council proudly proclaims that Central Otago has inherited a magnificent natural and historic ‘World of Difference’ which we must celebrate and protect. Save Central is attempting to do just that, by properly exercising democratic rights to demand answers and receive full and satisfactory explanations.