The mouse that roared

A month after a proposal for a managed fill in Hunua failed to progress through the Fast-Track system, residents are looking at ways to provide long-term protection for the Hunua Ranges.

“We may have defeated two managed fills in four months, but we’re not letting down our guard,” Hunua Ararimu Paparimu Valley Residents Association (HAPVRA) co-chair Maxine Clayton says.

The 790,000 cubic metre fill was due to be built on top of a hill on farmland, just 5km from Winstone’s Quarry, an existing managed fill facility. In his decision, Chris Bishop, Minister for Infrastructure, said the project did not have significant regional or national benefits and may result in “significant adverse environmental effects, including effects on road safety and the potential contamination of a drinking water supply.”

Clayton says Auckland Council’s planning officials have agreed to meet to discuss how greater protection for the region could work. HAPVRA would like to see similar protections offered by the Waitakere Ranges Area Heritage Act.

HAPVRA is also pushing for more assessment work to be done on the capacity levels of current quarries and managed fill in Auckland to show there’s no need for future facilities.

“Stevenson’s Quarry has just been granted Fast-Track approval to massively expand; Winstone’s Quarry is going through the same process. There is absolutely no need for the Hunua Ranges or the Franklin region to be pockmarked by a series of small private fills, just to line someone’s pockets. This is an area of outstanding natural beauty. We have narrow rural roads, we have one of the highest rainfalls in Auckland and are prone to flooding and slips. Fill belongs in quarries, not on farmland. It would be madness to consider any more proposals,” she says.

Planning is also underway for a Country Fair on November 15 at Y Camp Adair. The event will allow locals to relax, unwind and celebrate defeats over both the Jones Road in Hunua and Ararimu Road in Paparimu fill proposals.

“We are the mouse that roared,” Clayton says. “Rural voices do matter. We have many people to thank for our success, including national and local politicians. We had cross-party support for this, as well as many community experts and residents who put in many hundreds of hours of work on the campaign. We stood up for ourselves, and we did it!”

Franklin Ward Councillor Andy Baker says the minister made the correct decision to decline a referral to the Fast-track process.

“I congratulate the community for the way they organised themselves and gathered evidence to make it more than just not wanting it in their backyard. We need managed fills, but they need to be where there are existing road networks capable of accommodating the heavy traffic, close to the likes of quarries so trucks are full both journeys and where they will not impact negatively on the environment or other infrastructure like water supply. This one maybe ticked one box, so the wrong thing in the wrong place.”