Winstone wants to fill in quarry at Three Kings

Winstone plans to continue working from the quarry site while the filling goes on. Photo / The Aucklander

The owner of the 15ha Three Kings Quarry in Auckland plans to start filling in the site next year. But the suburban land's future is uncertain.

Winstone Aggregates, a division of Fletcher Concrete and Infrastructure which is part of Fletcher Building, has applied to cart vast loads of fill to the site at 985 Mt Eden Rd.

In seeking to do this, Winstone is giving no indication about what use the land might be put to, except that development will be possible.

"The proposal does not involve any future building or development. However, the cleanfill works will be completed to a standard which will not prevent any future development," Winstone said in its notified application to Auckland City.

Three Kings United, the lobby group formed to protest about the quarry, has raised issues about ground subsidence and water contamination.

For years, neighbourhood groups in the area have been lobbying Auckland City to come up with a plan for one of the biggest vacant city sites.

Austen Bell, the group's treasurer, who lives 100m from the quarry, said residents feared hundreds of truck movements, negative effects on Three Kings School, fine dust from the quarry being filled and the length of time the work would take.

The quarry business wants resource consent to fill the hole and says it will eventually stabilise and landscape the site. Work could take up to 12 years but Winstone wants to continue its operations from its land in the meantime.

"The works will be phased in and initially involve establishing a new vehicle access while continuing the existing quarry activity," Winstone's Richard Crompton told the council.

"The filling of the site is expected to take approximately 10 to 12 years to complete. However, factors such as the level of general economic activity and the availability of other fill sites over time will determine the actual time period," Winstone's application said.

The business is forced to apply to the council because the work is on a contaminated site, will exceed the allowable noise levels in an area beside housing, and because of the vast amounts of earthworks involved. The Auckland Regional Council's permission is also needed.

Fill for the quarry is expected to come from "developments similar to those which are the source of fill placed at the Winstone Puketutu Island site", the application said.

Late last year, real estate agents at Colliers International began marketing another Fletcher Building former quarry site. More than one million cubic metres of fill is going into Fletcher's disused North Wiri quarry to create nearly 40ha of industrial land.

The redeveloped quarry, between Roscommon and Wiri Station Rds, has been marketed as one of the biggest blocks of South Auckland freehold industrial land to come on the market in years and 5ha to 20ha lots are being marketed.

People have until May 29 to make submissions on the Three Kings site.

THE HOLE STORY

* Operated for 150 years.
* Once owned by Winstone family.
* Rock extracted from site.
* Crushed after quarrying.
* Used for roads and buildings.