File photo / Thinkstock
Residents of one of the country's more remote settlements are furious with the Westland District Council for planning to take their waste trailer bin away, leaving them with a 114km round trip every time they dump their rubbish.
Mayor Maureen Pugh and chief executive Tanya Winter visited Otira township last week to discuss the council's draft annual plan but they were met with a volatile reception.
Some ratepayers who did not know the meeting was on are riled that the only notice the council gave about the meeting was a notice on a local business window.
Council staff proposed in March that the Otira bin be removed altogether, even though most of the waste is dumped by people passing through the township.
Assets and operations manager Vivek Goel said the Otira trailer bin cost the council about $38,000 a year because the site produced about 50 tonnes of waste a year. Based on calculations of how much waste Hokitika produces, Otira's population of about 80 people only produces three tonnes of waste a year, which should only cost the council just over $2000.
Ten people attended the Otira meeting, but only a handful of them were ratepayers.
Christine Hennah, of the Otira Hotel, said the meeting did not go down well at all.
"The people in Otira are very, very angry. They are taking away our rubbish trailer. What do we do now? Dump it in the middle of the road?
"The council have come up here with the draft annual plan and say how they are taking away the skip they provide for Otira and we have to take our rubbish to the refuse station in Kumara. But we pay for waste management, too.
"We have several people in the village who are beneficiaries and quite a few people don't have a car. What are they going to do?"
Mrs Hennah said she thought there were about 22 ratepayers in the village but only a few knew about the meeting.
"The meeting was quite volatile but not all the ratepayers were there. The council did not think it (the waste issue) serious enough to send out individual notices to ratepayers. It was only the people who happened to see the notice on the window of the hotel. We felt everybody should have been sent an individual letter telling us about the meeting and about what they were going to inflict on us."
She said Otira did not get nearly enough in return for what it paid in rates, and the same issue affected a lot of towns in Westland.
"For $100,000 we get a street and two street lights and right now we have a skip, but we won't have that soon. It's not only us; all those other little towns will be just as mucked around as we are."
Mrs Hennah was firm about what needed to happen next: "We want to have another meeting."
Ratepayer John Burns was equally vehement about the plan.
"They have my address to send my rates out yet they didn't inform me as a ratepayer that the meeting was on, especially an important issue like this.
"There are a lot of people up here on low incomes and don't have a vehicle. What are they going to do with their rubbish? It's obvious. The council's disregard for the environment shows they do not care at all.
"It's a step back 100 years. It's unbelievable in this day and age. I just think it's appalling.
"They just need the money for the cycle trail. I don't give a f..k about the cycle trail."
Responding to the Guardian, Ms Winter said both she and the Mayor tried to discuss what options were open to the community. "The main focus was on the proposal to remove the trailer bin from that community, with feedback that it is used a lot by people travelling through, and there will be more dumping.
"Our concern was how the residents will dispose of their refuse and recycling, so we discussed the transfer station at Kumara and options around how transporting their waste could be achieved most efficiently."
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