Expert evidence programme: thirteen disciplines identified

For immediate release

Subject: Expert evidence programme, commissioning standards and funding

Spokesperson: [Name and title to be confirmed]

Media contact: [Awaiting client evidence] — until it is published, reach the press office through Have Your Say.

Supporting documents: [Media pack available on request]

Thirteen expert disciplines are engaged by the application for the proposed 1,200-dwelling development at Arrow Junction. Ridgeburn Press is today publishing the standards its expert evidence programme will operate under, in advance of instructing anyone.

Why thirteen is the headline

A proposal that engages one or two disciplines is a building. A proposal that engages thirteen is an infrastructure programme, and the count is a direct measure of how many independent things have to be right, at the same time, for the consequences to be what the applicant says they will be.

It is also a measure of asymmetry. Thirteen workstreams are a cost of doing business for an applicant with a development at stake. For a community they are a fundraising problem, a sequencing problem and a timing problem — particularly where a compressed process requires the evidence to exist before the window opens rather than after.

The schedule

Ridgeburn Press is not publishing a list of the thirteen disciplines, because we do not yet hold the document that sets them out — [Awaiting client evidence]. Inventing a schedule and presenting it as the applicant's would be exactly the overstatement this platform exists to avoid.

What the published figures plainly engage is a different question, and one we can answer: approximately 3,000 daily vehicle movements engage transport engineering and road safety; approximately one million litres of wastewater a day engages wastewater engineering and servicing capacity; land application at Morven Hill engages soil science and hydrogeology; 2.8 tonnes of nitrogen a year and an unquantified phosphorus load engage water quality and freshwater ecology; 1,200 dwellings in an open landscape engage landscape and visual assessment; whole-of-site night lighting engages lighting and night-sky assessment; and DP 601937, RT 1174253, RT 1174254 and Covenant Instrument 13089567.5 engage planning and property law before any of the rest is reached. That mapping is ours, it is partial, and it is labelled as such.

The standards every commissioned report must meet

• Named and independent. The author is named with qualifications, and is independent of Ridgeburn Press and of every party to the application.
• Published in full. Including any finding that does not help the case against the development. A report published selectively is not evidence.
• Brief published with it. So a reader can see what was asked and, just as importantly, what was not.
• Method and limits stated by the author. Assumptions, data sources and the boundaries of the work, in the expert's words rather than ours.
• Fee disclosed. The amount and who paid it.
• Right of response attached. Any party the report discusses gets our standing right of response, before and after publication.

A report that cannot meet those conditions will not be commissioned, because it will not survive contact with a competent opponent — and evidence that does not survive scrutiny damages a case more than no evidence at all.

Funding

The programme is funded against a $500,000 target structured as seven milestones, beginning at $50,000 for preliminary expert reviews and running through wastewater and hydrogeology, traffic modelling, environmental and dark-sky assessment, comprehensive expert evidence and legal and planning response to a fully funded challenge. No public money is involved. Details at Support the Investigation and Expert Evidence Centre.

Evidence statement

Classification: Public Statement

Status: A statement of Ridgeburn Press commissioning policy. No expert has been instructed, no report has been received, and nothing here is an expert opinion.

Author: Ridgeburn Press Office

Last reviewed: 16 September 2026

Sources

1. Schedule of expert disciplines engaged by the application — [Awaiting client evidence]
2. Ridgeburn Press expert commissioning standards, published at Expert Evidence Centre

Assumptions

• The figure of thirteen disciplines is taken from the record as published and is not our count.
• The mapping of published figures to fields of expertise is ours, is partial, and is not presented as the applicant's schedule.

What is not established

• The identity of the thirteen disciplines as scheduled.
• Which expert reports the applicant has commissioned and what they conclude.
• Any expert opinion on any effect described on this platform.

Right of response

Ridgeburn Limited, Queenstown Lakes District Council and any person named here may respond in full. How to respond.