The proposed activity involved the extraction of aggregate material and rehabilitation with cleanfill, overburden and topsoil material. Other activities included the management of adverse effects by constructing bunding, and dust mitigation.

This proposed quarry expansion was small in extent and adjoined an existing quarry, which has been operating for many years. All extracted aggregate would be processed in the main site and the quarrying activities restricted to a specific area of the Miners Road Quarry.

It should therefore have been a simple process to achieve consent. However, the site's location over the Christchurch West Melton Groundwater Allocation Zone and residential properties within 250 metres of the Site, piles of debris from previous forestry harvesting on the Site and a Council reserve adjoining the northwest boundary made it more complex. Furthermore, K B Contracting & Quarries wanted the consents sought to be bespoke to the expansion site and stand-alone.

It took some time to work through these matters with the Councils and we provided ecological expertise to in the form of a lizard survey and planning advice including to remove clean filling from the proposal. This was seen as a barrier to approval (unless a stringent monitoring regime was proposed that we considered outweighed the risk). So, we prepared a modified rehabilitation proposal that utilized overburden and topsoil sourced from the Site.

Consent was granted this year by both councils with reasonable sets of workable conditions.