At yesterday’s board meeting, deputy mayor Neil Gillespie, president of the board’s audience panel, was appointed to be on the expert panel to evaluate the request.
Council infrastructure and planning group manager Louise Van der Voort said Santana Minerals indicated that she was submitting a request later this month.
Although the applicant had to consult the board before requesting accelerated consent, the legislation did not specify what details or consultation level was needed.
The board could appoint a counselor to participate in the four -person expert panel, who would be decided by a judge.
Other opportunities for the board to be involved in the process would be commenting on a report of -chave on the request and commenting on the project conditions.
The answers would be needed in the deadly deadlines.
The counselors appointed Mayor Tamah Alley and CR Sarah Browne to approve the board’s key question report for the Bendigo -Phir Golden Project.
Van der Voort said that because the deadline for responding to applications would probably be tight, it was necessary to have the nominations and experts in force.
It was important that the board was involved in providing planning advice and ensuring that appropriate conditions were applied around a variety of issues, including landscape, ecology, noise and remediation and associated conditions around a bond, she said.
The project was expected to extract billions of dollars in gold and employ hundreds of people.
julie.asher@alliedpress.co.nz
