The head of the Saugeen Valley Conservation Authority says he's aware of the ongoing delays in issuing project and building permits within the watershed.
Luke Charbonneau says there are a number of reasons for this, reasons he says the SVCA Board has been trying to deal with for the last number of months.
Charbonneau says he feels they've made progress on some of the issues adding some changes will be taking place in the next few months which he hopes will greatly improve the efficiency of the authority in getting those permits out.
"But obviously, based on we've been hearing from the federation (of agriculture) and others we haven't been making enough progress and we know that but we aren't done yet, we still have lots of improvements we're gonna make, we have a plan for doing that," says Charbonneau.
Brockton Councillor Chris Peabody says he plans to bring forward a motion in the new year to withhold upwards of $500,000 in funding of the planning portion of the 2016 budget, and Charbonneau says that wouldn't be legal.
"Brockton and every municipality will need to fund the conservation authority as required under the Conservation Authorities Act and that's not optional," adds Charbonneau.
Charbonneau adds attempting to pull some manoeuvre to withhold funding is not the way to deal with the situation; he says the way to deal with it is at the SVCA Board level.
