South Island high country farmers holding land on perpetual lease from Canterbury University are closely following banker John Shrimpton’s battle over rentals due for Lake Coleridge’s Glenthorne Station.
On his calculation, Canterbury University is claiming rents nearly four hundred per cent above what is due. He currently lives in Vietnam.
Legal dispute centres on a 2009 eleven-year rent renewal, still unresolved. This assessment involves valuation of nine thousand hectares of Glenthorne Station leased from Canterbury University, some 36 per cent of the station’s total land area.
Glenthorne Station says rental assessments are governed by the Crown Pastoral Act; Canterbury University says the Public Bodies Leases Act applies. Differing rules in the two acts sees a four-fold difference in annual rent.
Glenthorne Station says high country farming is marginal. The higher rental makes farming at Glenthorne uneconomic, it says.
Rules in the perpetual lease saw their dispute go to arbitration. Arbitrators decided the Public Bodies Leases Act applies; the higher rent was payable.
Arbitration rulings cannot be appealed, as a general rule. The ruling is final.
In the High Court, Justice Radich allowed Glenthorne Station to file an appeal. The arbitrators themselves acknowledged a court ruling is needed to decide which Act applies.
This appeal has yet to be heard.
Canterbury University came to own large swathes of South Island high country in colonial times. In 1873, the then Canterbury Provincial Government allocated land on trust with rentals used to fund ‘superior education’ in the province.
Provincial governments were abolished three years later, replaced by the present nationwide parliament.
Glenthorne Station says terms of this colonial trust mean the Crown Pastoral Act is the current legislation governing rental assessments for high country perpetual leases. If correct, a lower rental is payable.
Glenthorne Station Ltd v. University of Canterbury – High Court (5.09.24)
24.223