Farm land in Airedale Rd near Weston has been bought by Holcim (New Zealand) Ltd to provide more raw materials for a proposed new cement plant in the Waiareka Valley.
The Overseas Investment Office (OIO) has given approval for Holcim to buy 90ha of the property owned by Neil, John and Liz Harvey for $806,400.
The land is the fourth parcel bought by Holcim in the area of its cement plant operations. Last year it received approval from the OIO to purchase a lifestyle block on the Weston-Ngapara Rd owned by Ali and Joy Kingan as a buffer to its cement plant site which is across the road.
Holcim's capital projects manager Ken Cowie said on Wednesday that the company had also bought two lifestyle blocks around its proposed open cast coal mine at Ngapara.
Holcim is at present before the Environment Court in Oamaru over appeals to 46 resource consents granted by the Otago Regional and Waitaki District Councils for the cement plant, quarries and mine.
If the court confirms the consents, Holcim's parent company in Zurich would still have to make a decision, at the earliest late this year, to build it.
Holcim already owns the property it needs for the cement plant, the coal mine at Ngapara, the limestone-tuff quarries near Weston and a sand pit at Windsor. It indicated last year it wanted to have large buffer zones around its developments and was negotiating other purchases next to its sites.
The property opposite its cement works and the two at Ngapara were for buffer zones, but the Harvey land was bought for its limestone, Mr Cowie said.
To buy the land, it needs OIO approval because Holcim (New Zealand) is wholly owned by an overseas company.
