The chief executive of Environment Canterbury, Bryan Jenkins, is following the path of the sacked regional councillors who appointed him.

Mr Jenkins is relinquishing the chief executive position to take up a professorial fellowship being established within the Waterways Centre for Freshwater Management in Christchurch.

The first meeting today of the Canterbury Regional Council Canterbury’s new government-appointed commissioners under chair Dame Margaret Bazley was a relatively swift affair, after an hour-long powhiri.

The commissioners held their first official council meeting since being appointed by the government to replace sacked elected councillors.

Environment Minister Nick Smith last month introduced legislation that was adopted by Parliament under urgency with the stated purpose of speeding up water allocation to irrigators.

While the government has brought in "fixer"  Dame Margaret Bazley to solve perceived problems with Environment Canterbury after sacking its councillors, at least one regional leader believes it should be looking within.

Environment Southland chief executive Ciaran Keogh said a lack of leadership from the top has created a difficult framework for territorial and regional authorities to work within.

An anti-business “innovation tax” has forced the companies behind plans to develop indoor dairy farms in South Canterbury’s MacKenzie basin to dump its idea – for now.

Southdown Holdings, Williamson Holdings and Five Rivers lodged resource consent applications for effluent with Environment Canterbury (Ecan) last year.

The companies wanted to house up to18,000 cows in cubical stables 24 hours a day for eight months of the year, spanning winter, and 12 hours a day for four months during summer.