Redwood decision overturned

Press, 26 November 1980, Page 6

Redwood decision overturned

The building of a rubbish transfer station in Styx Mill Road became more unlikely yesterday. The Metropolitan Refuse Disposal Committee voted not to designate the controversial site. New members on the com-! mittee overturned previous: policy and rejected a recommendation by their staff that the designation be confirmed. This results from the: second Waimairi County Council planning decision against use of the site. The five-to-three vote by the: Refuse Committee was de-! scribed by Cr R. S. Lester as' its worst mistake in hisi eight years as a committee! member. A. sub-committee will consider alternative sites for the station in northern Christchurch and report to ; next month’s meeting. Cr A. A. Adcock referred, to the long argument over} the Styx Mill Road site as a l “closed book.”

“It is finished, so let us; get out and look for an al-j ternative site,” he said.* Moving the motion against: continued designation, Cr Adcock said the public had made it “abundantly clear”! that, regardless of any case| made for the site it would, continue to be opposed. It; would be an "intolerable situation" to force the Styx Mill Road site through to the appeal stage before, the ’ Planning Tribunal. Co-i operation with public opi-| nion, not confrontation, was' essential for the refuse scheme to work, he said. Cr D. C. Close urged that! the committee -keep its I options open by not rejecting the site outright yet. I Although not advocating the site, he voted against Cr Adcrck’s motion.

The traffic likely to go to the proposed transfer station could be reduced if the scheme included “compre- , hensive recycling,” Cr Close, ' said. He feared that the se-1 lection of another site would, give rise to another resi-i dents’ protest movement. | Cr Lester said that the 1

■ station would not be “an ob- i ! noxious type of industry” ; and he was sure Redwood 1 residents would change their minds once it was working. < Cr E. C. Britnell said that < [new committee members had t made election statements t “not fully realising the posi- 1 tion and probably not wanting to either." I

The northern station was needed on schedule if the refuse disposal scheme was to function, ■he said. Two! years work had been put! into the Redwood site. “Wei cannot afford to throw it!

away,” Cr Britnell said. An engineering consultant to the committee, Mr M. Douglass, said he knew of not other site as satisfactory as the Styx Mill Road one. He continued to regard the proposed si .tion as ' a satisfactory use of that site. The committc: was also told of a clause in its

agreement dated June 1, 1979, for purchase of nine ha of land at the site. The committee’s secretary, (Mr J. Reid), said that the clause involved a financial obligation on the committee

to pursue town-planning aspects over the site “to their ultimate conclusion." The committee’s chairman, Cr A. H. Clark, ruled that Cr Adcock’s motion was in order when Cr Lester questioned it in view of the earlier agreement. The staff recommendation to the committee was that the five councils that were (involved in the scheme and |had lodged requirements [with Waimairi County be [advised that the site should be designated and that most [of the conditions about design and running of the proposed station laid down by the County Council in its planning decision be complied with. Had this been carried by the committee, the County Council would have had to decide whether to take the issue to appeal. Mr H. W. Cumberland, the

Kaiapoi Borough representative, was not at yesterday’s meeting and Cr I. G. Clark, of Waimairi, had left before the crucial designation vote.