Allan Birchfield's popularity looks set to stop short of the West Coast Regional Council table as six councillors decide the newly re-elected chair's fate
In a move unheard of in West Coast politics, regional councillors will vote on Tuesday on whether to dump the chair they just re-elected - Allan Birchfield.
The Greymouth gold miner - known for his eyebrow-raising views on everything from climate change to wetlands - was the second-highest polling candidate in October’s regional council election.
He’s also the longest serving local politician in the region - now in his seventh term on the council and his second as chair.
But his popularity with voters is evidently no longer shared by his colleagues around the council table.
Birchfield took three months’ leave from the council before Christmas, citing stress and health reasons.
And this month a letter signed by all six of his fellow councillors asked chief executive Heather Mabin to call an extraordinary meeting to consider removing him as chair.
It’s not the first time there’s been a move to depose him: in 2021 an attempted coup failed only because iwi reps on the council brokered a peace deal following the abrupt resignation of a new CEO, Vin Smith.
The pair had clashed over Birchfield’s hands-on approach to operational matters, including pressing for fast-track resource consents to get rid of demolition waste building up in central Greymouth.
Birchfield also argued with Smith that ratepayers couldn’t afford the sort of rate increases proposed in the new Long Term Plan and complained bitterly when they went through.
He has continually and publicly objected to new environmental rules affecting West Coast landowners, including wetland, building and farming regulations.
And he's regularly denounced the region’s new combined District Plan as a waste of time and money, imposed on long-suffering West Coasters by an interfering government.
Birchfield’s views are probably shared by a good percentage of electors, going by his high personal vote in the past two elections.
But late last year, before he suddenly went on leave, stories about his deal with the council over the sale of the Grey River dredge, which he owns, surfaced in local media.
As a councillor eight years ago, Birchfield agreed to a deal proposed by the council’s commercial arm, VSL, to take over the dredge and sell it on his behalf.
The council never found a buyer and the dredge appears as a $157,000 debt on its books.
The Audit Office has raised no issues over the deal in terms of any conflict of interest and Birchfield has paid the steep fees required to keep the dredge resource consents current.
He believes the sudden publicity over the issue was part of a push to unseat him.
“It’s part of a campaign ... I agreed to the deal in the hope we could keep the dredge on the coast and I wish now I’d just given it a miss; I’m pretty much over it,” a clearly wounded Birchfield said in January.
But the unsold dredge is arguably the least of the council’s worries.
The West Coast Regional Council’s performance under Birchfield’s leadership has faltered in the past term: key staff have bailed, either retiring or leaving for jobs in the private sector, or Australia.
Chief executive Heather Mabin, who took over from Vin Smith, has announced she’s leaving in July.
And most worryingly for councillors, there’s been slow progress on the council’s own consents for the big, supposedly ‘shovel-ready’ flood protection projects it won government funding for nearly three years ago.
And Westport is still waiting for the Government to say yes to its precedent-setting $56 million flood protection scheme – for which approval was expected last September.
Deputy chair Peter Haddock says the delays put the projects at risk.
“The Government’s under a lot of pressure for funding after the latest disasters – it’s crucial that we collaborate to make sure we keep on track.”
And that means first getting councillors and staff on the same page, he says.
“There’s been a disconnect on the council for some time between governance and management and it’s got to stop. We have to collaborate with staff and with the Government – that’s the only way we can move forward.”
Haddock won’t be drawn on whether he expects to be the new regional council chair by close of play today.
The meeting that looks set to see Birchfield ousted is being live streamed on the council’s Facebook page at 10am Tuesday.
Made with the support of the Public Interest Journalism Fund
