Unauthorised dumping

Press, 4 February 1984, Page 8

Unauthorised dumping

A director of the company that has been developing a Bromley residential subdivision since 1970 said yesterday that the company was not attempting to fill sections with unsuitable material. Mr J. G. Rutherford, of the New Zealand Land Development Company, said there had been problems with unauthorised dumping of material on land east of Linwood Avenue for some years. His contractor on the Kensington Subdivision ensured that fill material was sorted and compacted. He had not put fill on the site himself. “We are not dumping the material,” said Mr Ruther-

ford. The company was trying to ensure that all material used as fill was “up to scratch,” and the contractor had already had unsuitable material taken away in many cases. “Unauthorised people come in and dump stuff, and you have got to get rid of it,” Mr Rutherford said. He was commenting on a Christchurch City Council town-planning committee recommendation that approval of a subdivision scheme plan for the project’s next stage should be withheld until material unsuitable for residential section filling was removed. Mr Rutherford said there was no intention to keep unsuitable material on sec-

tions. He said the council could not “sit in an ivory tower and suggest it is all our fault.” There had been problems over the years with unwanted dumping. The council had been less than co-operative in helping to get rid of some of the problems, such as the dumping of car bodies on vacant land near Keighleys Road. “We know very well what the rules are,” Mr Rutherford said of residential land filling. “We will have everything up t ( o scratch by the time everything is finished.” The company would continue to try to prevent unauthorised dumping, but that was a difficult task. Only a very small per-

centage of the material was unauthorised, but it was that which stood out in the council’s mind, Mr Rutherford said. Some of the unsuitable material had come from sources such as the Municipal Electricity Department, which had dumped rubbish from work huts on the land. The development company was an experienced subdivider, and was “terribly sensitive to filling,” said Mr Rutherford. “So are the public.” The company had always argued that the City Council had some responsibility to help get rid of material that had been dumped without permission.