Central Otago District Council (CODC) staff have expressed delight at the community response to a call for ideas to feed into the council’s long-term planning process at Wednesday’s (May 31) council meeting.

The council reviewed 33 comments relating to district-wide activities at the meeting, many of which aligned with work that was already programmed for the future and the comments would be fed into those workstreams.

In addition, staff would investigate the development of a climate and biodiversity plan for Central Otago, and solar and wind energy conversion opportunities for the district, so that these can be included for consideration in Long-term Plan budgets and work programmes.

Six ideas presented at the meeting related to activities the council was not involved in and those would be passed on to the lead agencies and/or landowners for their direction.

A total of 58 suggestions plus comments were received from the community. 

Community boards would review ideas that related to their specific wards at their upcoming meetings.

Once completed, all comments and feedback would be displayed on the Central Otago Let’s Talk community engagement platform.