Tip details prepared

Press, 25 August 1983, Page 1

Tip details prepared

Details of a plan to close the Sawyers Arm Road refuse tip and use the city’s Bexley tip for the disposal of Waimairi rubbish will be outlined at a Christchurch City Council committee meeting on Monday.

The move has been agreed to by Waimairi District Council and Christchurch City Council subcommittees, to coincide with the opening of the Christchurch airport’s runway extension in March. The Deputy Mayor of Christchurch, Mr Rex Lester, said yesterday that the. “exact detail” of the plan was being prepared and would be put before the council’s resource recovery committee meeting on Monday.

Cr Lester said that the runway extension would open on schedule, and the Waimairi tip would be closed at that time.

The Bexley tip would be used for the disposal of

Waimairi refuse until the opening of the city’s eastern transfer station in Ruru Road, which was expected in June, 1984.

Council engineers had calculated that there would be enough landfill available up to the Estuary Drain at the Bexley tip to cope with the additional refuse. Cr Lester said that once the Bexley tip had been filled, it would be closed as promised. “From a local point of view, we can see a finality to the Bexley tip,” he said.

The plan hinged on the opening of the Waimairi beach landfill next year. Access to the landfill is the subject of an appeal being heard by the Planning Tribunal.

“I am not presumptuous enough to guess at what decision the Planning Tribunal will make, but for the purposes of planning and the fact that the council will be in recess because of (local body) elections, it is necessary for both councils to look at this with a view to finalising it,” said Cr Lester. “We had to look at it in a positive way and presume access to the landfill would be available.” The move to close the Waimairi tip may avoid a planned boycott of the runway extension by the New Zealand Airline Pilots’ Association.

The pilots have threatened not to use the extended runway because of what they say is a bird hazard from the nearby tip. • Cr Alex Clark, who is a member of the Metropolitan Refuse Disposal Committee, said that the Sawyers Arms Road tip should have been closed some time ago. “It just proves that people would have swallowed their political prides months ago,” he said. ■ Cr Kathie Lowe said that the planned closing of the Bexley tip would please Bexley residents. “We have publicly said we would close the tip in December, 1983, and we are only going to be six months outside that date,” she said. Hearing ends, page 8