Mayors, tradies and business owners are set to join farmers in their thousands in what could be the largest mass rural protest in New Zealand’s history.

With more than 1000 farmers indicating they would bring their tractors into Christchurch’s Cathedral Square on Friday, Banks Peninsula farmer Aaron Stark had to take action.

“It was getting too big for our liking.”

Stark has been co-ordinating the Christchurch “Howl of a Protest” on behalf of Groundswell NZ against increasing Government interference in people’s life and business, unworkable regulations and unjustified costs.

When the number of expected protestors threatened to be unworkable, he had to direct some to other Canterbury towns.

Like the other 51 towns around New Zealand where protests would take place, Stark expected large numbers in Christchurch from a broad spectrum of society, including lawyers, builders, plumbers and diesel mechanics.

“Even in the city, I’m receiving 20 phone calls a day from people who want to support us. It doesn’t matter where you are, across the board we’re hurting.”

Stark said the protest was about issues that also affected urban residents, including freshwater regulations, Resource Management Act reform, and significant natural areas (SNAs).

Like others who were joining the protest, Stark believed the Government was centralising many issues, and taking power away from local authorities.

Mayors from around the South Island have expressed their support for the protest.

“There are many issues impacting our communities at the moment and farmers are definitely bearing the brunt of too many of them,” Waitaki mayor Gary Kircher said.

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A Local Government New Zealand conference was being held in Blenheim the same day, and many mayors were planning to attend, including Grey mayor Tania Gibson.

She planned to speak alongside Westland mayor Bruce Smith about SNAs, which had been particularly controversial on the West Coast.

Before the Government’s National Policy Statement for Indigenous Biodiversity, local councils could decide how to map natural areas that should be protected.

However, none of the West Coast district councils had mapped out their SNAs before responsibility moved to the Te Tai o Poutini Plan Committee, which was creating one district plan for the whole region.

Gibson said a map of proposed SNAs, prepared for the committee, showed they covered the vast majority of private land on the West Coast.

Hurunui mayor Marie Black said there had never been a more critical time to support those working in our primary industry.

“Enough is enough.”

The speed and demand of regulations in the rural sector was destroying people, she said.

Timaru mayor Nigel Bowen said the amount of policy and reform that was being fast-tracked by the current government needed to be of concern to all New Zealanders.

Selwyn mayor Sam Broughton said the financial and mental wellbeing of the farming community was critical for its continuing success.

Waimakariri mayor Dan Gordon said if he was in Rangiora on Friday he would greet the protestors with “open arms”.

“For a long time I have been a critic about the speed and pace of reforms.”

Groundswell NZ co-founder Bryce McKenzie, from West Otago, said he believed Friday's event would be the largest rural protest in New Zealand’s history because communities felt like they were not being listened to.

He said a one-size-fits-all approach to freshwater regulations would not work and authority needed to remain with local councils and water groups. City-dwellers would also be affected by the proposed reforms.

The Government’s approach to mapping SNAs and forcing farmers to fence off farm areas without consultation had also caused “massively serious mental anguish”, he said.

Classic Cookers co-owner Lois Mitchell planned to protest in Rangiora because she believed the Government should do more consultation with the rural community.

“They don't talk to us down here.”

Flaxton farmer David McCaughlin helped organise the Rangiora protest in part because the current proposals could see 20 per cent of his productive land fenced off as wetlands.

“We need to stand up for our country,” he said.

Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor said he would not attend the protest, but he understood current pressures meant this was not an easy time.

The regulations being criticised were part of efforts to meet the challenges New Zealand faced, he said.

The protest in Christchurch would begin at the A & P Showgrounds at 10.45am before the tractors were driven to Cathedral Square, arriving about 12pm. It would be followed by a “bark off” with farm working dogs.