The old service station site on Te Ngae Rd might be a great location for a refuse transfer station if you're Transpacific Industries, the company wanting to set it up - but from the point of view of our city, it stinks.
Has any thought gone into the potential impact of this transfer station on the general area and equally importantly, the city as a whole?
Increased truck movements at that point will cause problems for nearby businesses, for cyclists already contending with vehicles coming and going at the nearby service station and for the general flow of traffic along that part of Te Ngae Rd. More trucks also means the road will require more frequent maintenance and given the local funding shortfall for roading we've just been told about, it will be an extra expense our council can't afford.
There will inevitably be a smell. Rubbish, recyclable or not, smells. Won't it be lovely to be walking the dog in the forest across the road with the smell of rubbish wafting through the air? Won't it be pleasant to be bathing in the pools at the nearby marae, enjoying a coffee at the new shopping centre planned for the Tarawera/Te Ngae site, working in one of the neighbouring businesses, living at the Te Ngae end of Vaughan Rd with the constant smell. Nice for the local kids.
Some locals are concerned people will dump rubbish at the station even when it's closed, causing further problems. Their concerns aren't unrealistic. This newspaper has often written about the lazy, inconsiderate people in this community who like to dump rubbish anywhere they please. We're about to create a new dumping area.
Then there's the appearance. It's understood there's to be a wire fence. No wooden or concrete fence to hide the refuse from public view, just a wire fence. Our city leaders who fought for transtasman flights must be rapt the view tourists who fly here will have on their way to or from the airport will be a refuse transfer station and the inevitable litter that will be floating around. Let's hope they keep their taxi windows closed so they don't catch a whiff as they go by, wondering why on Earth a tourist city with a forest on one side of the road would allow piles of rubbish on the other.
Transpacific Industries is obviously busy and in need of an extra site in our city but the site it has chosen is simply not suitable for a business of this nature. There's a reason our rubbish dump isn't in the middle of Lynmore, why our main recycling centre is back from the road - rubbish is untidy, unsightly and smelly.
Our city councillors and council officers should ask themselves what image we'd like visitors to arrive and leave our city with and whether they would care to live next door to a refuse transfer station.
Our council needs to very carefully weigh up the potential impact of this proposal and it's hard to imagine the positives would outweigh the negatives. This is a bad idea.
What do you think? email editor@dailypost.co.nz, text DP then your message to 021 241 4568, or write to editor, PO Box 1442, Rotorua.