Significant changes to a proposal by RS Sand to establish a sand quarry on the southern outskirts of Cambridge has delayed the final decision another month.
Newcombe Rd Quarry opponents
A hearing before commissioners Richard Blakey (chair), Ngaire Phillips, and Tim Manukau in Waipā District Council’s Te Awamutu chambers was adjourned part way through the third day last week.
The adjournment followed an application from lawyer Anna McConachy of Gordon and Pilditch, representing Waipā District and Waikato Regional councils, who said officers and advisers needed time to consider the landscaping changes presented on the first day of the hearing.
Rhys and Antoinette Powell, whose property overlooks the proposed sand quarry at 77 Newcombe Rd, had completed their submissions. The quarry plans to extract 400,000 tonnes a year for about 25 years, resulting in 200 truck movements a day through Cambridge.
The turn off to Newcombe Road from Tirau Rd but there is no way north on Waikato Expressway from here. Photo: Mary Anne Gill
“As the immediate neighbour, we are directly and disproportionately affected by this proposal. The quarry would introduce a combination of visual, noise, dust, and health-related impacts that would significantly diminish the amenity, character, and overall enjoyment of our property application changes which related to landscaping,” Rhys Powell told the hearing on day three.
RS Sand had presented an alternative – a plan to delay lifting the Karāpiro Gully wall – which would have limited the visible impacts on the Powells’ property.
Newcombe Rd – Tirau Rd intersection, Cambridge.
Powell asked for the consent to be declined, saying he could not see how the significant effects on him and his family could be avoided, remedied, or mitigated.
Rhys Powell
“I am deeply concerned about the sand quarry activity as it is proposed at present, from an operational design perspective and in terms of the impact it will have on my family, home and business.
“The existing riverbank acts as a natural buffer between the proposed quarry operations, the stream, and neighbouring properties. Experts I have engaged have advised that leaving the gully wall of the quarry up, in full and permanently, will largely prevent the air discharge and landscape effects that I and my family are proposed by the applicant to accept.”
Following the adjournment, the commissioners issued a direction telling RS Sand to provide updated staging, vegetation, erosion, sediment, land remediation and management plans for a continuation of the hearing next month.
Barry Quayle
Former Waikato Regional Council chair and now Cambridge resident Barry Quayle was scathing of RS Sand’s revised conditions.
He said they represented a very substantive difference.
“As a result, it can be reasonably sustained that it now lacks any sort of transparency, accuracy and openness from what was first enunciated to the people and businesses of Cambridge. In other words, this consent sought is now fundamentally different from what was initially sought.”
Other submissions against the application – either in full opposition or in part – came from the Cambridge Town Hall Community Trust, Cambridge Chamber of Commerce, Windsor Park Leasing, landscape, air quality and health and environmental experts.
The Town Hall Trust is concerned about the impact trucks would have on the historic building while the chamber and Windsor Park both favour the installation of on-off ramps at Tīrau Rd which would allow trucks from the quarry to go straight onto Waikato Expressway rather than drive through Cambridge.
An overhead shot of the proposed quarry with Glenys Miller’s property at the left, and the Powells above.
Others who withdrew their opposition or felt their concerns had been mitigated by RS Sand were New Zealand Transport Agency, Department of Conservation, Fish and Game and a neighbour in French Pass Rd.
The commissioners also want to know more about RS Sand consultation with Glenys Miller and her family whose property is next door to the quarry in Newcombe Rd.
Glenys Miller in the garden she reestablished at her Newcombe Rd property after part of her property was taken for Waikato Expressway. Behind her, where the pine trees are, is the planned quarry site. Photo: Mary Anne Gill.
The News reported last year Miller and her family were concerned about the silica dust the quarry would produce and the groundwater effects on their property.
RS Sand legal representative Christian McDean told the hearing before the adjournment he maintained the project application should be granted with appropriate conditions.
He criticised the misinformation about 400 truck movements through the town a day, saying that it influenced many of the submissions against the quarry.
McDean said most people, except New Zealand Transport Agency, agreed north facing ramps at Tīrau Rd would be beneficial to the proposal and possibly even the Cambridge community.
“However, the NZTA have made their position clear…. that these ramps have not been considered for construction at any point in the recent past or are going to be in the near future.
“Any further consideration of these ramps as part of this application is beyond the scope of what has been sought by RS Sand,” said McDean.
Rhys and Antoinette Powell run an international equestrian operation on the northern side of the proposed quarry and rely on the large, natural riverbanks to exercise and condition their horses. Photo: Mary Anne Gill
