Te Mata Mushrooms has 'right to stay' at Havelock North site

Te Mata Mushrooms owner Michael Whittaker said they had applied for a consent related to composting and mushroom growing in CHB while they were "looking at our options". Photo / File

Havelock North's Te Mata Mushrooms says it's "not going anywhere", despite applying for a resource consent which could allow it to begin operations in Central Hawke's Bay.

In recent years the company's odour issues have led to a battle between it and nearby Havelock North residents, after the urban spread reached the rural area where Te Mata Mushrooms has operated for nearly 50 years.

A resource consent application lodged in December with the Hawke's Bay Regional Council appeared to indicate the beleaguered company had plans to move to new pastures - requesting to take water for irrigation, compost production and mushroom growing purposes at a site near Waipukurau.

The application requests an increase in the volume of water take for an existing consent, and for a new water permit to take water under high flow conditions to be stored in a reservoir within the bed of an un-named tributary of the Tukituki River.

While it was proposed to construct a composting and mushroom growing operation on the land east of Mt Herbert Rd in time, this area will be in pasture or process crops until that time, the application said.

It noted consent was sought to irrigate up to 38ha of pasture and process crops in the area east of Mt Herbert Rd, and up to 9ha of apples within the area west of Mt Herbert Rd in addition to the 11 ha (west of Mt Herbert Rd) already irrigated.

However yesterday Te Mata Mushrooms owner Michael Whittaker said the company was "100 per cent committed" to staying on their current Brookvale Rd site.

He said they had begun looking at other options to see if there was "any other way" of managing their compost operations - the source of the stink.

This led to the CHB application, however it had been found moving operations to the Waipukurau site would not have been financially viable.

"It cements our commitment to stay on that [Havelock North] site. We're not going anywhere, we've got a right to be on that site," he said.

"We've certainly got challenges with our current resource consent but that's why we applied for a new one. We believe our new consent addresses the odour issue, and we look forward to expanding on the existing site."

A paper before the regional council's Environment and Services committee yesterday morning noted Te Mata Mushrooms was currently in discussion with Hastings District Council, and "looking at alternative sites for the operation".

It stated phase one was to move the composting with possible relocation to Central Hawke's Bay.

Last year the Environment Court fined the company $15,000 and issued an enforcement order for a new resource consent, which would include conditions addressing odour issues.

By December there had been 320 odour complaints lodged with the Regional Council against the company - with HBRC compliance staff issuing three $1000 infringement notices across just one week in October.

In November, the Regional Council laid one charge against the Havelock North company for unlawful discharge, carrying a maximum penalty of a fine of $600,000.

A court hearing was set down for early March at the Environment Court at Hastings District Court.