Council: Noise not all from Lumbercube

Lumbercube. PHOTO/STEPHEN PARKER

Rotorua's mayor says she is now receiving daily updates as the total number of noise complaints from the city's eastern suburbs passes the 1300 mark.

Rotorua Lakes Council was given a full update on noise issues coming from and around the Lumbercube mill on Vaughan Rd at a meeting of the council's operations and monitoring committee today.

The council's chief operating officer, Dave Foster, said noise complaints coming from the industrial area of Ngapuna had risen to 1316 as of today and council staff actively monitoring the area had identified other companies contributing to noise issues in the area, as well as the Lumbercube mill.

Mr Foster said those companies had also responded well to any noise issues presented to them by the council.

"Lumbercube knew noise was going to be an issue ... and had a significant programme of work going on to mitigate that noise.

"The point in which they started night time operations ... led to a whole lot of people making further complaints around Easter."

Mr Foster said Lumbercube closed over Easter and did a lot of work to reduce noise from the mill.

"They have been very diligent in terms of handling issues to address the noise going on. If we raised an issue with them they have acted on it as fast as they can. What we found since Easter is that the noise levels have dropped ... and our complaint levels have also dropped to three to 10 a night."

He said monitoring of noise had revealed complaints were coming from all over the eastside area and were dependant on climate and wind direction.

"But not all of them are coming from noise generated at Lumbercube," he said.

"It's a complex situation. Noise levels have dropped, but are spiking at different times, particularly during the night, and we are trying to identify that."

He said noise professionals were finding it difficult to conduct testing in the area.

"But it is an industrial site ... noise at night is a frustrating thing, we are not under-rating people's concerns."

Mayor Steve Chadwick said the issues were concerning and she was getting an update every morning.

"We are hearing the monitoring of complaints and receiving emails, so we need to make sure they are all fed into the database so we can respond to those people in the community so we can have open communications with those people. I'm very confident ... that we are all over this," she said.

Tonight members of Facebook group the Eastside Residents Action Group are holding a meeting to discuss forming a formal residents association.

"It is time to come together to help protect the interests, health and well-being of people in the eastside community, and make a plan to move forward," the page stated.