Council chief executive Vaughn Payne said the response reflected the depth of feeling in the Waikato community.
But Beef + Lamb New Zealand environmental policy manager Corina Jordan said given the plan’s significance she hoped for many more submissions.
“But I think that number is really reflective of just how hard it is to submit on something as complex as this. It is not a particularly friendly process to be involved in and our rural community did struggle to engage with the plan.”
Reading policy documents and compiling submissions was not something most farmers were familiar with.
B+LNZ ran intensive workshops to help educate farmers on what the plan meant and how farmers could submit on it.
Jordan said the well-attended sessions had done much to get the numbers of dry stock farmers submitting higher than could have been expected without such a process.
“Part of the challenge is you are required to identify the particular rule provision in the plan and comment directly to that. Farmers knew they had an issue with stock exclusion for example but they had to read up all the rules and provisions relating to that.”
In part it was simply the nature of planning and the process, which was difficult to avoid. She was waiting for final confirmation on just how many dry stock farmer submissions there had been.
“It has been all hands on deck to get people to submit on this and the numbers are certainly better than if we had not run the workshops to get farmers engaged with this.”
Some farmers in King Country and north Waikato were particularly successful in getting their neighbours up to speed on the plan and encouraging them to submit.
Farmers now had the right to present verbal submissions on the plan’s impact on their business. Jordan said the next step for B+LNZ would be to get farmers coached up on making a verbal submission.
“Many want to do so too, they feel more comfortable submitting verbally than in written form.”
Submissions closed at 5pm on March 8 and submission summaries were expected to be complete and available by the end of June.
The council would then call for further submissions asking submitters to indicate whether people supported opposed the submissions.
Meantime, consultation continued with Hauraki iwi, with recommendations on how to deal with the north Waikato area pulled from the plan to be determined by mid- year.
The council intended to re-notify that portion of the plan, with any changes included so it could be merged with the remaining catchment to ensure only one hearing and decisions process was run.
