Evidence library opens with its first propositions

For immediate release

Subject: Opening of the Ridgeburn Press evidence library and its five-heading structure

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]

Ridgeburn Press has opened its evidence library at The Evidence. It is the part of this platform that does the actual work, and it is built on a structure chosen to make selective quotation difficult.

Five headings, every time

Each proposition in the library is set out under the same five headings, in the same order, whether or not the material under them helps the case against the development:

• What Ridgeburn Says. The claim as the applicant makes it, in the applicant's own terms rather than in a hostile paraphrase.
• Evidence. The documents and figures actually on the record, each classified.
• Independent Analysis. What independent work says — and where none exists, that it does not.
• Questions Remaining. What has not been answered. This heading is the reason the library exists.
• Public Comment. What the public has said in response.

The fourth heading is the one most campaigning material omits, and it is the one a commissioner is most likely to read. A proposition with a short evidence section and a long list of remaining questions is not a weak entry: it is an accurate one, and it is far more useful to a decision-maker than an assertion dressed up as a finding.

The first propositions

The library opens on the figures already on the public record for the proposed 1,200-dwelling development at Arrow Junction: approximately 3,000 daily vehicle movements across State Highway 6, Gibbston Valley Road and the Crown Range Road approach; approximately one million litres of wastewater a day, disposed of by land application at Morven Hill; 2.8 tonnes of nitrogen a year, together with a phosphorus load that is not quantified anywhere we have seen; and the cumulative night-lighting effect of a settlement of that size, for which no assessment has been published at all.

Two of those entries have substantial material under Evidence and very little under Independent Analysis. One of them has a figure and no published working. One has no figure at all and is classified Under Investigation for that reason. We publish them in that state rather than waiting until they look stronger.

Classification and gaps

Every item carries one of eight classifications, from Primary Document at one end to Under Investigation at the other, so that a reader can tell a register entry from an applicant's estimate from our own analysis without having to infer it from tone. The vocabulary is published at How We Classify Evidence, and a classification can be challenged the same way anything else here can.

Where something is missing, it is marked rather than smoothed over, using exactly three labels: [Source to be added] where the claim is believed sound but the citation is not yet attached; Unverified — under investigation where the claim itself is not established; and [Awaiting client evidence] where the platform is ready and the material is awaited.

How to use it

Submit a document and it will be published with its classification attached, including one that does not support the case against the development. Challenge a classification and the challenge will be answered in public. Correct us and the correction goes on the register at Corrections & Right of Response rather than being edited in quietly. All three routes start at Have Your Say.

Parties named in any entry may respond in full under our standing right of response.

Evidence statement

Classification: Public Statement

Status: Describes the method and structure of the evidence library. It states no finding on any proposition and asserts no fact about the proposal beyond the figures already published.

Author: Ridgeburn Press Office

Last reviewed: 16 September 2026

Sources

1. Ridgeburn Press evidence library, published at The Evidence
2. Ridgeburn Press classification vocabulary, published at How We Classify Evidence

Assumptions

• The figures cited are the applicant's own as published, reproduced without adjustment or derivation.
• The five-heading structure is Ridgeburn Press method and is not attributed to any other party.

What is not established

• Any independent verification of any figure in the opening propositions.
• Any quantity of phosphorus at any point in the wastewater chain.
• Any cumulative lighting assessment for the proposal.

Right of response

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