West Coast Regional Council chair Peter Haddock has called for a staff report on why it has taken 17 months to process a resource consent for a gold mine in the Arnold Valley.
West Coast Mining Ltd has appealed to councillors after compliance staff shut the site down on May 31, alleging it was mining without resource consent.
In a letter to councillors last week, the company said it had been dealing with the Council since 2023 and had been assured that the consent was about to be issued.
Based on that, it had closed down its other two mine sites and moved all its equipment to the new location in January 2025, the company said.
“We have seven staff who rely on this work to support their families. The company also has financial commitments.
“Four days after a verbal order to stop work, we were given a written abatement notice that took effect immediately. This has made it hard for us to manage the site, especially during bad weather, because we can’t even do basic mitigation work.
“We don’t understand why the consent is taking so long, especially when we were told it would be approved in January. We’ve written to the Council twice in the last week.”
Haddock said there could be a number of reasons why the consent had been delayed, and the council was not necessarily to blame.
“I’m as keen as anyone to get the economy up and running, but the council has been faulted in the past for consents, when we’ve taken things on trust, and we need to be sure that all the information (about a site) is present and correct. “
The Council’s consents staff had been under the gun in recent months, with an unprecedented number of consent applications for gold and other minerals, Haddock noted.
“Now that I have been made aware of this, I have asked for a meeting with our CEO today to find out what has happened, and I am happy to go and have a look at the site with the mine manager, if that would help.”
The Council was in the process of simplifying resource consent applications for alluvial gold mining, Haddock said.
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The chair of the West Coast Regional Council’s Resource Management committee Brett Cummings had harsher words.
Cummings, who is a gold miner himself, has complained in the past about consent delays and described the shutdown as “disastrous”.
“It’s piss-poor and it’s just the tip of the iceberg. Lots of us are struggling. Our company’s been waiting for consent since last November.
“They’re sending the applications away to North Island consultants who know nothing about the industry, and they just keep sending them back asking for more irrelevant information.”
Council regulatory manager Jo Field confirmed there had at times been delays and staff were not always able to keep up with demand.
“As consent processing demand outstrips staff capacity to process, we can’t always immediately process a consent even when an applicant has met requirements.”
Cummings said he doubted the council wanted to keep up.
“I think they’re trying to close gold mining down. Either that or they’re incompetent. They say they’re bringing staff up to speed but they’re not.”
Regional Council staff numbers had climbed to 113 – with no improvement in resource consenting efficiency, Mr Cummings said.
The company’s letter to councillors, signed by consultant Chao Wang, asks them to read previous correspondence sent to staff after the shut-down.
“We ask that you please take a look at our letters and check what’s happening in the consents department. Long delays and changing advice have put us in a very difficult position. We just want to get back to work and do things the right way.”
By Lois Williams, Local Democracy Reporter
LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.