Westland Council forges on with factory

A defiant Westland District Council has gone on the attack, pushing ahead with plans for a Hokitika plastics factory.

At least 100 people packed into the council chambers. They demanded that the council stop spending while questions about the legitimacy of the plastics project were checked.

Retired mayor Durham Havill put Westland Mayor John Drylie on notice that he must resign if the FT Manufacturing proposal fell over. A small number of mainly elderly ratepayers supported Drylie.



Tenders for the factory, which the council has promised to build for $2.2 million, will now be called in about three weeks.

One councillor, Gary Blackburn, tried unsuccessfully to suspend the funding for the factory "until there is certainty of the product and the marketability of that product". But deputy mayor Nelson Cook criticised the media for "guesswork, innuendoes and straight-out lies" about the plastics factory.

A small group of individuals were "absolutely determined" to stop FT from coming to Hokitika and had staked their reputations on it, he said.

Councillor Kerry Eggeling said the disturbing thing was that someone had been leaking confidential papers about the proposal.

Councillor Evan Jones, who is a director of FT Manufacturing and chairman of the council company that will build the factory, said the construction would probably be under way in five weeks.

Sydney plastics firm Armacel this week invoked its worldwide plastics patents and issued a legal challenge to FT over rights to plastic "skin" technology.

FT's manager of corporate affairs, Wayne Byrne, called the Armacel claims a "fishing expedition and a weak attempt to muscle in" on his company's technology.

Patent attorneys had confirmed the FT process "was in the clear", he said.

Byrne said the rights to use the technology had been legally purchased, as had the machinery required.

"We also know the detail of Armacel's patent coverage and how it differs from the technology we are using," Byrne said.

Under the international patenting process, detail about FT's technology could remain secret for three years, he said.

The opposition, therefore, could not know the details of the technology FT was using.

Byrne also defended the right of a former Armacel employee, Ian Pitts, to work for FT.

- NZPA