My Account
Dairy Flat residents are frustrated by the revelation that Auckland Council has sold a paper road through the Redvale landfill to Waste Management (WM), meaning an end to legal public access between Richards and Horseshoe Bush Roads.
The right of way was originally negotiated by the Dairy Flat Protection Society and Rodney District Council when WM was establishing the Redvale landfill in the early 1990s. The company wanted to buy Lime Access Road, as it bisected the site, but the former district council decided to lease it to WM for the duration of the landfill instead. An easement to allow public access around the landfill was part of the agreement, and WM was required to reinstate the road, or replace it, after 30 years.
However, local residents recently discovered that Auckland Council had sold the road land to WM at the end of 2018 for $230,000, meaning those lease conditions became invalid and the public access easement was surrendered.
Gates to Lime Access Road itself and the bypass road that provided public access around the western edge of the landfill were chained and locked last week.
Rodney Local Board member for Dairy Flat Louise Johnston said it appeared that Council’s property division, Eke Panuku, did not know about the easement when it went through the sale process in 2015-16, so it didn’t come up as an issue when the Board of the time considered it.
However, Nick de Witt, who lives near the landfill, questioned why Panuku wouldn’t have known about the easement.
“It was easy enough for me to find from the property file and exactly what the story is with the paper road and the whole history back to 1995, so why couldn’t Council?” he said.
Johnston said the sold road was included as a public trail in the Rodney Greenways Plan, which the Board took to WM for consultation at the same time as the sale was going through, but no one had been mentioned its sale.
She and other Rodney Local Board members voted to ask Panuku to report back on how the easement was missed “in the interest of public transparency and accountability” at last their meeting last month.
Eke Panuku said it was aware that the Board and Dairy Flat residents were frustrated with the loss of public access through the site.
“We are currently reviewing our files to identify where errors or miscommunication may have occurred,” a spokesperson said. “We will be providing the local board with our findings in the coming weeks.”
Meanwhile, Waste Management said it was committed to providing Dairy Flat residents with public access to the bypass road for walking, biking or horse riding, but only once Redvale Landfill and Energy Park was no longer operating.
“In the meantime, we’ll do our best to provide public access where practical, however there will be times when operational tasks will temporarily restrict access to the bypass road for safety reasons,” a spokesperson said.
