Andrew von Dadelszen Former Regional Councillor

Five years ago, I, along with John Cronin, Philip Sherry and Athol Herbert were the pre-selection committee that shortlisted Bill Bayfield for the CEO role at the regional council. I had just read Jim Collins' book ‘Good to Great' and we were looking for just that.

BOP Regional Council was a good company, but its management was ‘siloed', and it was full of bureaucrats that loved to write reports – with actions and outcomes few and far between.
We selected Bill Bayfield as a ‘change manager' and we were not disappointed. Bill got in and changed structures, changed the senior management team and quickly built an ethos of action orientation. Your regional council has come a long way, but the job is not yet finished.
With Bill leaving to take up an even bigger challenge in Canterbury, the current council has an enormous task to find a replacement that can move this business transformation forward. BOP Regional Council still has the potential to be a great company, but it will take a lot more courage and determination.

So what are the challenges going forward. The first has to be the restoration of water quality for the Rotorua Lakes. After 20 years of having identified the base issues, we have seen some good results in some of the smaller lakes, but the ‘monkey in the cage' is Lake Rotorua, and we have yet to really address this iconic lake's water quality.
It is time that the regional council made some hard decisions and the first is to recognise that Lake Rotorua will not be restored without land use change. Farmers have been resisting this and the ‘softly, softly' approach has failed. Central government has partnered in this cleanup, but I sense frustration in Wellington that not enough is happening so this will be the first challenge for an incoming CEO.

The second challenge is the Tauranga Harbour. To give Bill credit, he recognised this issue and prioritised it. The NIWA modeling on sedimentation has given us the tools for resource prioritisation and the innovative mechanical removal of mangroves – a first for New Zealand – is proving a huge weapon towards reversing the degradation. There will always be the ‘naysayers', but without substantial mangrove removal we won't reduce the ever increasing sedimentation. That said, mangroves are just a symptom of the problem and we have to get serious about catchment care as well.
We have to reduce the nutrification of our harbour waters if we want to get on top of the sea lettuce issue and getting rid of gorse from our harbour catchments will be a big start. Our scientists have recently shown that gorse leaches as much nitrogen per hectare into our waterways as a hectare in dairy production. With this knowledge we expect both Tauranga City District Council and Western Bay District Council to play their part in eradicating gorse from their land within the harbour catchment.

If you have a view on these, or any other local government issues, I invite you to email me at andrew@vond.co.nz