The granting of resource consent for a milk-processing plant near Clydevale has been criticised.
Hannah Lawrence, who lives on Smiths Track, about 2km away from the Craig Rd factory site, said some residents were not contacted about the proposal or given the opportunity to make a submission, despite being "greatly affected".
The factory would create extra traffic, noise, emissions into the air from the milk dryer and the coal-fired boiler, and waste water into the Waitahuna and Clutha rivers, she said.
Clutha District Council planning and environment manager Murray Brass said rural buildings and plant did not require consents if they were in line with the Clutha district plan.
However, the processing plant's dryer building would be 30m high with an exhaust stack extending 3m higher than the building, and so required resource consent.
Mr Brass said the consent application, lodged by Big River Dairy Ltd, included written approval from residents closest to the site.
Construction of the plant, which will finish 20,000 tonnes of dairy nutritional products a year, has already begun. Gardians (Greenfields, Agricultural Research, Dairy Innovation and Nutritional Systems) is a joint venture between Dunedin-based dairy farmer Grant Paterson and Auckland-based food packaging company Sutton Group.
Mrs Lawrence said the start of construction came as a surprise to many local residents.
"The council should have been more open and processed the application as a notified one," she said.
The processing plant will be able to process up to three tonnes of skim milk powder an hour.
The resource consent application said the plant would operate up to 24 hours a day during the peak of the season, from the end of September until the end of December
