Refuse scheme’s future in doubt

Press, 30 October 1981, Page 1

Refuse scheme’s future in doubt

An urgent meeting of all local councils involved in the metropolitan refuse scheme has been called by the Waimairi County Council..

The move comes alter the council on Wednesday evening rejected a Waimairi coastal site for landfill, a decision which the chairman of the Metropolitan Refuse Disposal Committee. Mr H. A. Clark, said yesterday was “the beginning of the end for the Metropolitan Refuse Scheme.”

: “We now have to consider whether the scheme has any future. If it is to have one we will have to work something magical fairly quickly,” said Mr Clark.

A special meeting of the Waimairi County Council’s finance and by-laws committee decided last evening that it was essential that the member councils review the scheme’s progress and consider any desirable alterations.

The County Chairman, Mr D. B. Rich, said that one council was considering withdrawing from the scheme, but it was prepared to listen to suggestions. The committee also agreed that it was important to get back to the “essential elements” of the scheme.

The council's representative on the Metropolitan Refuse Disposal Committee, Cr A. A. Adcock, said, "We have to look at what the scheme wants, and where it wants to go. If we just go' ahead we could have a ratepayers’ revolt on our hands.” Mr Rich said that the councils had to take charge of the scheme.

"The public cannot afford to have the metropolitan

committee running round like a chicken with its head cut off. Delays are taking this scheme into the land of the impossible,” Mr Rich said.

Mr Clark said that an alternative site or an alternative scheme had to be looked at soon.

“A possible alternative is the Chaneys site at Belfast, though this would probably be more expensive to develop than the rejected Waimairi site.”

The Metropolitan Refuse Disposal Committee had earlier yesterday decided to meet on November 10 to consider Waimairi’s rejection of the coastal site.

But Mr Clark said it would be after the General Election on November 28 before everybody concerned with the scheme met to decide its future.

Heathcote seeks meeting on refuse scheme, Page 4.