Appeal decision reserved

Press, 8 May 1982, Page 4

Appeal decision reserved

Decision would be given "as soon as possible." Mr Justice Casey said in the High Court yesterday on the appeal by way of case stated against the Planning Tribunal's ruling confirming the decision' of the National Water and Soil Conservation Authority authorising the building of the high’dam at Clyde. The hearing began on Thursday. Messrs C. B. Atkinson and C. A. McVeigh appeared for 17 persons who objected to the authority's decision. The authority was cited as the first respondent and the Minister of Energy (Mr’ Birch) as the second respondent. Messrs K. Robinson and J. R. F. Fardell, both of Wellington. appeared for the Crown. Mr Robinson said that no member of the tribunal had treated Government policy j as decisive to the issue. What I each member of the tribunal j had done was to acknowledge the fact that the need for additional electricity sprang from a policy decision to encourage a certain I type of industry, j What the tribunal had to i decide was which of the two competing uses of this land was of paramount interest to the public. It had to give weight to all relevant factors including Government policy but it was not asked to determine which was the most beneficial use. The contents of the tribunal’s 48-page judgment was evidence of the care with which all members had considered the mass of detailed, and in some cases, conflicting material. It was submitted that even if this was the type of case in which it was open to the court to. do so, the court should be slow indeed to interfere with any findings of fact. The difference between the minority and the majority was over the question of whether the public interest was best served by a high dam which would maximise the production of electricity more cheaply and more quickly, and with some fringe benefits as to irrrigation, or by the low dam which would flood a lesser area of the orchards, but otherwise might produce less power, later, and perhaps more expensively, Mr Robinson said. ■ ■■’. In order for the objectors to succeed 4t was necessary for them to show that there yvas no evidence from which the majority could have i reached such a conclusion or 1 that the conclusion was in- 1 consistent or contradictory 1 to the evidence, Mr Robinson I said. |