WHAT WE DO

Resource Consents

Our team can assist you with a wide range of resource consents.

Our experienced team take the time to understand your situation and aspirations from the outset. We can then help you work out what you can and can’t do to either gain new consent, change conditions of an existing consent, or for the renewal of an existing consent.

 

Consents required? We prepare resource consent applications and assessment of effects, including technical support or coordinating this work for larger applications, through to small consents. Then we can take care of both regional and district council consenting, from water permits, to land use, and discharge consents. Our clients range from individual farmers through to corporate farms, irrigation schemes, commercial entities and councils.

Project Scoping

We can prepare high level or detailed assessments of potential consenting and other regulatory requirements, associated with a wide variety of projects.

Surface Water Permits

Our team has a wealth of experience dealing with surface water take consents for:

  • Irrigation
  • Domestic and stockwater
  • Industrial or commercial
  • Hydro power
  • Environmental enhancement

It is often critical to understand the hydrological impacts of minimum flows or flow restrictions, or a reduction of catchment allocation. Our team is experienced at liaising with stakeholders to collaborate and co-design flow and allocation regimes to ensure all values are provided for. We can also ensure you understand what your consent and its conditions mean for your property.

Groundwater Permits

When it comes to groundwater consents make sure you have the technical and planning experts to help you obtain your water for:

  • Irrigation
  • Domestic and stockwater
  • Dairy shed washdown water
  • Industrial or commercial
  • Environmental enhancement

This could be deep groundwater through to shallow bores or galleries with hydraulic connection to surface water. Step and/or aquifer testing is often required to support your application, and we are able to do this for you, from the fieldwork to the data analysis and reporting.

Land Use Consents

Land use consents can be required for a variety of earthwork activities and associated with small and large projects. Our team can prepare application for activities such as:

  • River intakes
  • Vegetation clearance within the riverbed
  • Gravel extraction from riverbeds
  • Installation of culverts
  • Irrigation ponds and dams

Farming Land Use

Depending on your farm’s location and land use, you may require a land use consent to farm. This may be trigged by your irrigation area exceeding 50ha, your winter feed being greater than a set area or percentage of your farm, or the fact you are located within a high-risk phosphorous zone. It is important you know where you stand in accordance with the relevant plans to your property, and our team can help you with this.


Irricon is also able to help you prepare an Overseer nutrient budget and Farm Environment Plan (FEP) for your property to support such applications.

Discharge Consents

Discharge consents come in many shapes and sizes, from dairy, deer, pig effluent to human effluent, storm water, or a variety of activities to land, air or water, or sediment associated with earthworks or works in waterways.

District Council Consents

At times a standalone consent from the district council is required. Other times, it is in conjunction with a regional council consenting process. We can prepare resource consent applications for various activities including:

  • Solar power farms and associated infrastructure
  • Earthworks
  • Vegetation clearance
  • Land based gravel extraction
  • Intensive farming operations such as chicken and pig farming, and forestry

In addition, we can also prepare applications for Certificates of Compliance and Certificates of Existing Use.

Other Consents

We enjoy tackling the ‘outside the box’ consents - whether its carrot washing, chicken farms, changing the consented hours of business operation, authorisation under flood protection and drainage bylaws, to managed aquifer recharge (MAR), we will gladly check out the consenting requirements that don’t come across ours, or council’s desks every day.

Other Regulatory Needs

From concessions for activities on public lands, through the Department of Conservation (DoC), engagement with Land Information New Zealand (LINZ), we have you covered.

National Environmental Standards for Freshwater 2020 (NES-F)

In September 2020, new national regulations came into effect, that must be considered in addition with other any other planning framework. If the NES-F cannot be met, then additional consents may be required such as consents for intensive winter grazing, intensification of land use, or irrigation within 100 metres of a wetland.