Court rules in favour of Council

The Court of Appeal has granted the appeal by Whakatane District Council of the High Court decision allowing the Bay of Plenty Regional Council (EBOP) to relocate head office from Whakatane to Tauranga.

In its decision upholding the Whakatane District Council’s appeal, the Court of Appeal declared EBOP’s decision to relocate its headquarters as not complying with the Local Government Act 2002 (LGA).

The Court said Local authorities such as EBOP must give consideration to community views and preferences in their decision-making processes. ‘Giving consideration to community views and preferences was a two-stop process. First, the Regional Council needed to secure information as to such views and secondly it needed to actually consider that information for purposes of decision making’.

The Court concluded that there was no factual basis of the Regional Council‘s view that it had complied with its statutory obligations under section 78 of the Act.

Justice David Baragwanath writing the decision for the Court said “no document and no other evidence was adduced” to show EBOP had in the course of its decision making process, given consideration to the views and preferences of the community likely to be affected or had an interest in the decision.

Welcoming the Court’s ruling Whakatane Mayor Colin Holmes said the Council and the community should be very pleased with the outcome.

“We feel vindicated in our position and challenge that the Regional Council had not followed the correct process in reaching its decision to relocate its headquarters to Tauranga”.

For more information please contact the Mayor of Whakatane, Colin Holmes on 07 306 0500.