Marlborough District Council Media Statement

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Lake Elterwater cricket match can go ahead on dry lake

A community cricket match on the dry bed of Lake Elterwater on Marlborough’s East Coast is not affected by an abatement notice asking a local farmer to stop using the lake bed to graze cattle and to cultivate.

“There’s nothing to stop the cricket match going ahead,” says Marlborough District Council compliance manager Gina Ferguson.

The farming family approached the Council in December to ask whether it was permitted to mow the lakebed and was advised then that the grass could be mown, she said.

It was only activity that had an effect on the subsurface of the lake bed – like grazing cattle or planting crops – that was not permitted by the abatement notice, she said.

“One day of cricket is not going to have the same kind of effect on the soils as ploughing and planting or grazing cattle which disturb the lake biofilm, compact the soils and change the nutrient loading.”

The farmer had planted crops and grazed cattle on the lakebed during past droughts but last year the Council issued an abatement notice on the grounds that such activity breached the Resource Management Act.

The situation had been discussed with the property owner previously but now that complaints have been received by the Council and the property owner had not ceased the activity an abatement notice had been issued.

ENDS.

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