Redwood win in battle to reject refuse transfer depot

Press, 28 October 1981, Page 1

Redwood win in battle to reject refuse transfer depot

Redwood residents, who oppose the siting of a refuse transfer station in their area, have won a battle against the Metropolitan Refuse Disposal committee.

At a meeting yesterday, the committee bowed to local pressure and announced that it had scrapped plans to build a refuse transfer station on a privately owned site bounded by Barnes, Sturrocks. and Cavendish Roads. The committee had recently indicated a preference for this site. The committee has also decided against building on the north side of Styx Mill Road. However, a metropolitan sub-committee will review the original 17 proposed areas for the station, and so continue the long search for a suitable site. The original sites include two previously favoured — land on the south side of Styx Mill Road, and an area bounded by the Main North

Road, Radcliffe Road, and the railway line. The committee would also consider having only two refuse stations instead of three, said the chairman of the Metropolitan Refuse Disposal Committee (Mr H. A. Clark). “We don't want people to believe that the committee has been limping from one area of indecision to another,” he said. “Public opinion has often been against us and eventually we may end up with only two refuse stations.” While the committee had an obligation to buy the Styx Mill Road site, on the north side, it hoped to “settle” this problem. A decision on a site, which could be “anywhere in northern Christchurch," is ex-

pected at the committee’s December meeting. “Public opinion has confirmed that no-one wants a site next to their house — but they don’t mind if it is next to someone else’s,” said Mr Clark. The member of Parliament for Papanui, Mr M. K. Moore (Lab.), said last evening that the decision to drop the Styx Mill and Barnes Roads sites was a “victory.” He was disturbed at the decision to look at other sites. He suggested that compactor trucks — which he described as mobile transfer stations — be used in northwest Christchurch to collect rubbish. The cost of the trucks would be only as much as the interest on the transfer station scheme, he said.