Jane Nees BOP Regional Councillor www.janenees.co.nz

The year ahead is very full for the Bay of Plenty Regional Council. We have a lot of change afoot – including the Resource Management Act and Local Government reforms and Treaty settlements.

We must deliver business as usual efficiently and effectively while coping with these changes.

This includes regional policy and plan development for natural resource management, water quality, environmental monitoring, biodiversity and biosecurity, public transport, maritime, civil defence and regional development – and a lot more.

In upcoming columns, I will cover a range of issues in the regional council space – what they mean and why they are important – to help you understand what the council does.

In the planning space we have consultations on our draft Long Term Plan and the Bay of Plenty Regional Land Transport Plan; hearings on the Regional Policy Statement change on Natural Hazards and the Regional Coastal Environment Plan; new water quality rules for the Rotorua Lakes in the Regional Water and Land Plan; development of a plan change for the Regional Geothermal Plan, a review of the Regional Air Plan, and work on an updated Tauranga Harbour Strategy.

In addition we're working to set objectives and limits for water quality and quantity in priority catchments across the region.

The regional council is also expanding its public transport network in 2015. Normal public transport delivery involves more than two million passenger trips across the region a year.

This will be supplemented by 46 school bus route services in Tauranga in 2015, as the Ministry of Education withdraws its service delivery.

This is just a fraction of what we're working on. Follow my upcoming columns to find out what's going on. If you have views on this or any other issue, you can email me at neesj@xtra.co.nz or ring me on 07 579 5150.