Junction carrot shed plans abandoned

Ruapehu Bulletin, Volume 11, Issue 526, 8 March 1994, Page 3

Junction carrot shed plans abandoned

FROM PAGE 1 The residents were not happy with the way the council had approached the whole issue, he said. Another local resident, Paul Beckett, said the plans to load containers there was still of concern. He said the refrigeration units were very noisy and that a better site would be the siding 300 metres south of the station. Mr Beckett said according to the council' s own rules an industrial zone should not be next to a residential area. \ 'The council allowed the subdivision to go ahead, and railways sold the properties, while this was a possibility," he said. He added that he felt it wasn't right that the council turned down the offer of a piece of land for a reserve for use by local residents in

return for the station, and then allow an operation that would be detrimental to the residents. Disappointed Main Trunk Rail Ohakune (MTRO) president Bob Norling said the group would be very disappointed at the outcome.

"We're very fortunate in thisdistrict to have the Main Trunk Railway Line here and we should use it to the maximum. We shouldn't chase this sort of activity away," he said. "The shed was nothing to do with council and nothing to do with the residents.

It was to be on Railways land." He said it was not right that a small group of people had managed to overturn a carrot processing and rail freighting development that the district has been trying for 20 years to see established.

Mr Alabaster had offered to include a double-ended covered siding in the shed which would have been used to house visiting vintage locomotives overnight. One of the main aims of MTRO is to encourage more use of the railway and rail freight.