A decade-long wrangle over the Kakanui camping ground flared up again this week, after neighbours appealed a decision made by a Waitaki District Council resource consent hearing last month.
In June, an independent hearing commissioner granted resource consent for Equipment and Support Ltd to establish and operate more visitor accommodation at the site, but imposed restrictions on the size of the operation to an upper limit of 30 camping sites on the property.
However, the Environment Court had previously restricted the number of camping sites to five, and neighbours Robert and Linda Hildeman have lodged an appeal with the Environment Court to reverse the consent.
The Hildemans' counsel, Pru Stevens, said the couple had always opposed the granting of consent "in its entirety", and they still did. She said the decision of the hearing commissioner to restrict the size of the camping ground to 30 sites did not "adequately constrain the scope of activities", and added that the commissioner's ruling for a 30m-long acoustic fence at the site did not fully address the Hildemans' noise concerns.
The camping ground, which is owned by Allan Jones, had been operating without resource consent since the 1990s, but four council hearings and two environment court hearings have so far failed to resolve the matter.
Mr Jones declined to comment on the new appeal.
