Scrap metal recyclers prepared to fight sweeping rule changes aimed at noise, odours

Friday, 11 July 2025

Scrap metal recyclers in Christchurch are concerned their industry is being unfairly targeted by sweeping rule changes - and say they won’t put up with it without a fight - but the council appears to have listened.

The Christchurch City Council is reviewing its long-awaited industrial plan change in the wake of strong industry feedback.

“With this plan change, everyone becomes tarred with the same brush,” said Spencer Trillo, a third generation metal recycler based in Middleton who says the plan change is not backed by evidence.

“We’ll do whatever we can to fight this.”

The proposed plan change - several years in the making - was meant to address the impacts of container yards and heavy industrial activity, like loud noises and offensive odours, on nearby residents.

It would not retroactively stop businesses like National Steel - unpopular with its neighbours - from operating, but could stop new heavy industries from opening next door to residential areas through a proposed buffer zone.

For industrial sites next to or across the road from residential zones, the draft rules proposed limiting heavy vehicle trips to 60 per day and heavy machinery could not operate between 10pm and 7am, otherwise a new type of consent was required.

But Trillo, who is also vice president of the NZ Association of Metal Recyclers, said when the council provided his industry peers with a list of noise complaints over the last few years, only a couple involved scrap metal yards, and only one was upheld.

“It just doesn’t justify why we’re being targeted,” he said.

When the council was asked how they defined a scrap metal yard - Trillo said yards varied from being simply storage to involving heavy machinery, and were often confused with auto wreckers - the council could not say, he said.

“That’s quite scary,” he said. “We provide a very essential service for the city.

“We will have to jump so many more hoops and pay for all their consenting processes. It just gives them [the council] more of a strangle hold over us for what we feel are unwarranted reasons”.

Korina Kirk, general manager of Metalcorp, said even though her company was in a heavy industrial area and had never received a complaint, the new rules could stop her business from expanding and creating new jobs.

It had a flow-on effect too, she said, as trucks coming into her yard might include demolition material which otherwise could end up in landfill to avoid the cost of secure storage.

She believed the tension between residents and heavy industry was really a story about Christchurch’s need for housing, and the demand for land in affordable neighbourhoods.

“If we want to build more residential housing in these [industrial] areas, then the onus should be on the developers to build houses robust enough to be in those areas … more insulated and noise reducing.”

At a workshop for elected members on Tuesday, council staff said the strong industry feedback - as well as the uncertainty of upcoming Resource Management law reform - resulted in a decision to review the plan change.

“There is a gap in the technical work to date, and that’s the economic assessment of new or re-drafted rules,” said council city planner Sarah Oliver.

“Complaints and feedback are not enough to support new regulation” Oliver said, who also said some issues the plan change sought to address were “spot issues” in certain locations. There could be alternative solutions, she said.

A revised timeline pushed a decision on the long-awaited plan change to October 2026, almost a decade from when the idea was raised, a frustrated councillor Yani Johanson said in the meeting.

“I do appreciate it has taken a long time but we do need to get this right,” Oliver said.