On 19 May 2025, the panel convener appointed the expert panel. The panel consists of:
Dr Phil Mitchell (chair)
Dr Mitchell is a co-founder and partner in the nationwide resource management consulting firm Mitchell Daysh Limited.
He has more than 40 years of experience as a resource management professional and has played a lead role in many of the country’s more contentious development proposals across multiple sectors and industries.
Dr Mitchell is a Full Member of the New Zealand Planning Institute and was awarded the Institute’s Distinguished Service Award in 2015. He is also a past president of the Resource Management Law Association –the first, and until recently, only non-lawyer elected to that role.
He has acted as a hearings commissioner and hearings chair on more than 100 occasions. He recently chaired the Hawkes Bay Regional Council’s Independent Flood Review Panel – a year-long project that evaluated the efficacy of that council’s flood management infrastructure and flood-related management systems in the aftermath of Cyclone Gabrielle. He also chaired the Waikato District Plan hearings panel.
Bal Matheson
Bal Matheson is a barrister, who has specialised in resource management, environmental, public works and local government law for over 27 years. Over that period, he has represented clients in hundreds of district and regional planning processes and resource consent hearings, including for large-scale infrastructure developments, urban redevelopment projects, greenfield developments, retirement villages, quarries, industrial projects, airports, and landfills.
Bal is an accredited hearing commissioner. He is a member of the New Zealand Bar Association, and the Resource Management Law Association.
Robert Scott
Robert has been practising as a planner since 1992 and has a wide range of experience in all aspects of the resource management process. His skills include the management of large or complex consent applications, and he has specialist skills and experience in affordable housing projects, subdivision and development, coastal planning projects, managed fill operations and other projects that are located in sensitive or rural receiving environments.
Robert is often called upon as an expert planning witness before council and Environment Court hearings and has certified as a commissioner under the Ministry for the Environment's Making Good Decisions Programme since 2008.
He is currently on the panel of independent hearing commissioners for Auckland Council, Queenstown Lakes District Council, Tauranga City Council and Thame Coromandel District Council. He is currently the chair of the hearing panel for the Proposed Far North District Plan.
Register of interests
The register records all relevant panel members' interests and is updated, when necessary, throughout the consenting process.