More oppose rubbish site

Press, 17 June 1980, Page 6

More oppose rubbish site

Objections to the proposed siting of the northern rubbish transfer station in Styx Mill Road have almost doubled since the first town planning hearing. • When objections for the rehearing closed last Friday, Waimairi County Council had received 1500, including 1350 represented by the Redwood Action Committee. The first hearing, declared invalid on a legal technicality, attracted 820 objections. The action committee’s chairman (Mr B. A. Le Fevre) said yesterday the increase <in support would come with a general realisation that the committee had -put. a rational case at the first hearing and was not pushing a losing cause. Mr Le Fevre said the committee’s evidence would be unchanged for the rehearing and would be taken as read. An assurance had been given that the Metropolitan Refuse Disposal Committee’s evidence would also be taken as read.

The first hearing, which lasted 43 hours, had covered every, aspect of the proposed siting, he said. Mr Le Fevre expected, the streamlined rehearing would take only four or five hours. , . The County Clerk (Mr J. Reid) confirmed, that the metropolitan committee would allow its evidence to be taken as read and this would make the rehearing

considerably shorter than the first one. Mr Reid said the new hearing would be held before the end of August, and a date for it would be set in the next week to 10 days. Objections to the Waimairi landfill proposal, part of the metropolitan scheme, had so far reached 250 he said. The closing date for objections to the landfill is this Friday. A county' councillor and member of the newly-formed Waimairi Coastal Preservation Protection Committee (Cr A. A. Adcock) said yesterday he hoped the number would climb to 1000 by the time objections closed tis Friday. The committee, which Cr Adcock said would handle its fight in a similar way to the Redwood Action Committee, held a public meeting in Queenspark last evening. Mr Le Fevre had been invited to speak at the meeting "mainly to indicate to the public that its not an impossibility to fight bureaucracy,” said Cr Adcock. . •/ ■

He said they had concentrated on gathering as many objections as possible, and after Friday would consider the engagement of consultants to present a technical case against the landfill. “The extent to which ,we are able to use our legal and democratic rights will

depend on our ability to raise funds,” Cr Adcock said. The county council has voted to give the committee $lOOO from Styx riding finances to help fund its objection. . ■

The committee would not be happy unless the landfill was sited away from the coast, he said. It was up to the metropolitan committee

to use its resources to in? vestigate alternative sites./ If the’ committee failed to find alternatives to the proposed Waimairi landfill area, and that site was declined town planning approval, Christchurch would be “left in the lurch” over its rubbish disposal problems, said Cr Adcock.