Te Mata Mushroom stink fine, but the battle goes on

Michael Whittaker, from Te Mata Mushrooms, speaking at a public meeting in May. PHOTO/FILE

A Judge grappling with further Havelock North resident complaints about odours from Te Mata Mushrooms has described the lingering opposition as a "classic case of reverse sensitivity".

The reflection came yesterday from Judge Craig Thompson, highlighting the encroachment of urban expansion and a "desirable" living environment on the space of a company which had operated rurally for 50 years and employs about 120 people in the area.

But at the end, the company was fined $26,000 in its latest tangle with neighbours, the Hawke's Bay Regional Council and the courts over discharges of offensive odours.

The fine, split between two charges laid by the Council relating to discharges in February this year, was imposed after a disputed facts hearing argued by Council lawyer Jonathan Krebs and company lawyer Lara Blomfield.

Te Mata Mushrooms had been fined $15,000 in April 2016 for similar offending, and has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to minimise the impact, consent and court processes and looking for an alternative site.

Judge Thompson placed an order for the company to cease production if it hasn't lodged a new land-use application with the Hastings District Council by October 1, but he said he had been told that was close to being completed.

The Judge was also told it had become impractical and not viable for the company to relocate, and company owner Michael Whittaker later called for greater accountability from the regional council and the District Council, for enabling urban development in a way that failed to protect the interests of the existing operation.

The company applied in 2010 for a resource consent for the discharge of contaminants into the air from a composting and mushroom growing operation and associated activities. It was granted with conditions, and it was about that time concerns about odour started to mount, with residents' concern that new residents may arrive unaware of the problem.

Whittaker said the company had applied for the appropriate new resource consent in 2015, but it still hadn't been heard. The Regional Council had to take responsibility for the delay, he said, reiterating submissions made by his counsel in the court earlier in the day.

"We are frustrated with the whole elongated process," he said. "It is having an impact on the whole business. It is the councils that allowed residential expansion without looking at the whole situation. They seem to be looking the other way — they hope we'll go away."