Early Edition with Kate Hawkesby

I can see why we have resource consent issues in this country and it’s virtually impossible to get anything done. We’re experiencing it first hand at the moment with the Auckland Council.We put in a building consent to build a pool, a very straight forward pool, not building hydro slides and dive boards and turreted pool houses with fancy gates.Just a pool and the obligatory pool fence. We had an engineer draw up the specs and submit it to Council, routine procedure, nothing to see here. Then, to our surprise, the Council comes back a couple of weeks later and says not only do we have to apply for building consent to build a pool, but now also a resource consent.And all the standards that come with meeting resource consent. Obviously we query this – there must be some mistake, we’re not building a house or a garage or a building or a dwelling, it’s a puddle in a backyard. A pool surely cannot be subject to all the rigmarole of resource consent. So I ring up the Council planner one afternoon to have a chat and