Plan rubbished
He mahere ka patua
A recycling centre planned for Croad Place has been rubbished by property owner Lance Felton and he will do anything to close it down.
The South Waikato District Council proposed to establish a recycling centre and a transfer station on the industrial street.
But after consultation with the street’s businesses the council dumped the plan for the transfer station.
But that only fixes half the problem for Felton who is willing to stand up against the recycling centre as well. And he said it could even go as far as court.
‘‘We will go down that avenue if we have to,’’ he said.
Felton and his wife Jo own 1 Croad Place and they currently lease it out to three tenants.
But with the centre to move in right next door he fears he will lose at least one of his tenants.
‘‘One is four metres off the boundary facing that direction so all she is going to be looking at is the back of the recycling centre,’’ he said.
It was not about the idea itself, just the location, Felton said.
And he believes the facility’s close proximity to town is less than ideal.
‘‘It’s going to be so close to the CBD, Tokoroa gets such a bad rap and we want to keep it clean and tidy,’’ he said.
Council services manager Andrew Pascoe said a meeting was held with the affected business owners where most of those who turned up ‘‘weren’t happy’’.
But with only about 10 years worth of landfill space, Pascoe said something has to give.
‘‘For the consented activity of a recycling centre, we don’t expect a smell issue,’’ he said.
Pascoe said the idea will be revisited in 2017 when the Waste Management Plan is reviewed.
Two properties down from the centre is Kiwi Falcon Engineering owner Steve Holroyd.
Holroyd had nothing against the recycling centre. ‘‘ I’m reasonably happy about that, I don’t think it’ll cause too much disruption,’’ he said.
But Holroyd said a ‘‘smelly’’ dump area is a different story. ‘‘The transfer part is potentially more of a problem . . . I guess that could be messy if they don’t clean up’’ he said.