Consents can change!
Every few weeks I hear the same misconception — consent conditions cannot be changed. Because most water resources in Canterbury are considered by the Regional Council to be over-allocated, there seems to be a common belief that this makes it impossible to change consents.
I also hear that if you apply to change the conditions of a groundwater take consent, this opens the door for the Council to impose more restrictive conditions. These are misconceptions which mean many consent holders live with the frustrations resulting from consents not reflecting what they would like to do.
We hear feedback such as:
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I wish we had a higher rate of abstraction from our bores.
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If I increase the rate of take from one bore, I will need to reduce the rate of take from another bore.
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If only there was more flexibility regarding how much water comes from each bore.
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If I want to increase the flow rate from a bore, I will need to transfer allocation from somewhere else.
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I use the gate valve to ensure that the rate of take does not exceed what is consented.
The reason for writing this article is that we hear this sort of feedback surprisingly often. This suggests that many are unaware that changes can be made to consents, yet it is often possible to alter a consent to make it work for you.
In some cases, changes can be made with much less onerous assessment than the original application. For example, we recently successfully changed a consent increasing the combined flow rate from bores from 120l/s to 155l/s and this was achieved without the need to conduct any well interference assessment. This change helped prevent exceeding the maximum take of 120l/s and the associated headaches with non-compliance, but at the same time it built-in more flexibility in how the irrigation system is managed.
Another thing we hear is that the seasonal volume on a consent is restrictive, or that the consent has adaptive management conditions that restrict the allocation in some seasons. Even in over-allocated zones, there is a way to overcome this lack of reliability. This can often be achieved by transferring allocation from another consent. In most of Canterbury, there are consents available for this purpose. Given this situation, there may well be a solution available if you are short of seasonal volume.
If you feel that additional allocation would be useful, or if you have allocation on your consent that is unused, it would be worthwhile looking into the potential for transferring allocation now. This is because the ability to transfer may be removed in future changes to the Regional Water Plan. Also, if you hold a consent with unused allocation, this will have to be surrendered when the consent is renewed. We know that a high proportion of consents in Canterbury are not fully utilised. Given this situation, there must be hundreds of consent holders that could offer allocation for transfer. Are you holding spare allocation? This may be a valuable asset that will evaporate when the consent is renewed, or when the Regional Plan is changed.
Contact us to find out whether your consent can be changed or discuss the potential to transfer allocation. For transfers, whether you are considering buying or selling, time is not on your side, so act now!
