Board workshops opened P4
Women in Business P24&25
Next step P20-23
July 3, 2023
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Mahurangi retains shield Mahurangi College made it three years in a row with a convincing win over Hauraki Plains College in the annual Hauraki Exchange last week. See back page for results and more photos.
Sand company fights for dredging rights Three separate bids by an Auckland aggregate business to continue dredging hundreds of thousands of tonnes of sand from the Pakiri and Mangawhai coastline looked set to be cut to just one appeal case in the Environment Court last week. McCallum Bros Ltd (MBL) lodged appeals against Auckland Council’s refusal to renew its consent to mine sand from the inshore and offshore zones, while Manuhiri Kaitiaki Charitable Trust (Ngāti Manuhiri), Friends of Pakiri Beach, the Department of Conservation, and a
number of environmental, community and residents groups appealed council’s decision to grant MBL consent to dredge from a new mid-shore area between the two. However, in a surprise move, the hearing opened with the news that MBL was dropping its mid-shore application completely and wanted to adjourn the inshore appeal. Anti-sand mining parties opposed the adjournment, saying it was purely so MBL could continue to dredge sand there by
off the drawing board . . . m SaweII DESIGNER GrahaARCHITECTURAL
continuing its ‘rollover rights’– its consent expired in 2020, but all the while the case remains in the courts, the company can and does continue to dredge in the embayment. This is despite vehement opposition from local residents and environmental groups, who say the beach and rare fairy tern nesting sites have been severely damaged and denuded over the years. Opponents’ lawyers said the adjournment bid was an abuse of process by MBL and two of them, Ngāti Manuhiri and Friends of Pakiri Beach, formally applied to have
the inshore appeal struck out on those grounds. Judge Jeff Smith, heading a panel also comprising Judge Aidan Warren and Commissioners Russell Howie, Shona Myers and Kevin Prime, said a strike-out would be “a high bar”, and encouraged all parties to work on an alternative suggestion made by lawyers for MBL and the Fairy Tern Charitable Trust. This was for a temporary consent for the duration of the remaining offshore appeal that would continued page 2
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