After four years of wrangling, appeal hearings in two different courts and several million dollars spent, the future of the Project Hayes wind-farm proposal on the Lammermoor Range may be debated again in a rehearing.
The latest round of legal proceedings on Meridian Energy's planned $2 billion wind farm - an appeal against the Environment Court decision that declined consents for the operation - finished in the High Court at Dunedin yesterday.
A rehearing by the Environment Court is one of the options open to Justices Lester Chisholm and John Fogarty, who have reserved their decision on the appeal.
The judges can make a decision on whether Meridian should get consent, or they can direct the Environment Court to rehear the proceedings or consider any particular matter.
Meridian applied for consents for the proposed 176-turbine wind farm, which would be the largest in the southern hemisphere, in July 2006 and the Central Otago District Council and Otago Regional Council gave approval the following year.
The Environment Court decision was announced in November last year and at that stage Meridian said it had spent about $8 million on the project.
