Hi David,
I have used consultants previously (long long time ago) and cost was borne by Council – that decision was intened to reduce likelyhood of “fallout” at the time, when a wholesale farmland review was performed after many years of not doing proper reviews.
IMO I would see it as a cost of managing Farmland generally.
I have had a look at the policies published here and found one that does provide for independent consultant reviews, from Mid-Western Regional Council Mid Western Regional Farmland Policy which provides for an independent review if proceedings are taken in the L&E Court, after an assessment against some very specific criteria.
“Where an applicant chooses to appeal to the Land and Environment Court against the categorisation, Council will obtain an independent review of the application”.
Not saying its a good or bad approach, just an approach I found.
At the end of the day, the idea is to reduce the risk of litigation (and get the right outcome of course) so it may be a up front expense that pays for itself – provided there is a well documented assessment process before it becomes an option. You don’t want to be referring every refusal for review.
Finally, hypothetically, how would you go about collecting the fee, bearing in mind the outcome of the review isn’t known until after its been commissioned.
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