Quarry growth 'a timebomb'

Matakana residents are challenging expansion of a quarry in their neighbourhood to serve the construction boom north of Auckland.

Rodney Aggregate Supplies, a joint venture of Winstone Aggregates and Fulton Hogan, wants to boost production at the Whangaripo Quarry, east of Wellsford, by 28 times its present permitted output.

It would save many truck and trailer loads a day travelling over the harbour bridge from southern Auckland quarries, the venture says.

But residents say the proposal would mean up to 240 trucks daily to and from the quarry, which would operate 13 hours a day, six days a week.

They turned out in force yesterday at the Environment Court when the joint-venture company presented its appeal against the Auckland Regional Council and Rodney District Council's turning down their bid for resource consents.

Among the 42 interested parties was Matakana School principal Neville Johnson.

He said the community was concerned about the use of Matakana as a through route to quarry markets beyond the village and an increase in truck traffic on a section of Matakana Valley Rd that is steep, windy and dangerous.

Residents opposed any permit for 20 truck and trailer units a day over the hill into Matakana and back.

It would increase the safety risk when added to the 20 single units a day now allowed a rival quarry.

Wayby and Whangaripo Valley Society chairman David Frith said the quarry was in one of Rodney's most scenic valleys surrounded by native forest that was designated as significant in the district plan.

He said a lot of people's hopes and dreams would be shattered by having a major industrial site in their midst.

Russell Hoffman, who represented residents of Govan Wilson Rd and others who look down on the quarry site, said the site would result in an ecological timebomb.

He said the catchment immediately above the quarry site was a habitat for the Hochstetter frog, a nationally threatened species.

But counsel for the company, Christian Whata, said the quarry was in a rural zone which provided for mineral extraction, and the traffic generated by the quarry was in keeping with land use in the rural zone.

The company said high-quality greywacke like that from Whangaripo was in short supply north of Auckland.