Mega Mitre Ten appeal dropped

Prime Property, owners of 55-85 Curtis Street, have dropped their appeal against the High Court decision to stop a Mega Mitre Ten being built on the site. This also upholds the injunction, obtained just before Christmas last year, to stop the dumping of 2,000 truckloads of landfill on the site. The site is presently zoned Open Space and Residential and lies in the middle of land in Northland and Karori also zoned Open Space and Residential.

One of the closest shops was the recently-closed Watts Hammer Hardware which shut down under the shadow of the threat of a Mega Mitre Ten being built a few hundred metres away.

A local resident of Northland, former Regional Councillor, Michael Gibson, says that the decision to drop the case was "thoroughly predictable - the property owners did not have a leg to stand on. They made this threat simply to cause a further six-month delay in the payment of costs to the Creswick Valley Residents' Association - a typical 'heavying' commercial ploy.

"What is amazing is that the City Council did not join in the Appeal, about the only sensible decision the Council has made in this long-running saga of ratepayer-funded disaster."

The way is now open for costs to be paid to local residents. These are expected to be scores of thousands of dollars.

"In the meantime, the City Council has been telling people that its legal costs are under $100,000 (actually $95,000) without mentioning that they are up for a lot more," says Michael Gibson.

The Council's solicitor, Sally Dossor, made the admission in an email to Mr Gibson during the week. It is unclear whether Councillors have yet been informed.

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Arguable Reassuring: Inspector-General Finds GCSB "Arguably" Legal

Of the 88 individuals:

• 15 cases involving 22 individuals did not have any information intercepted by GCSB.

• another four cases involving five individuals were the subjects of a New Zealand Security Intelligence Service warrant and the GCSB assisted in the execution of the warrants. The Inspector-General is of the view that there were arguably no breaches and the law is unclear.

• the Bureau only provided technical assistance which did not involve interception of communications, involving three of the individuals, so no breach occurred.

• the remaining cases involved the collection of metadata, and the Inspector-General formed the view that there had arguably been no breach, noting once again that the law is unclear.
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