Global Contracting Solutions, the company behind plans to build a waste to energy incinerator in Te Awamutu is promising to pay its resource consent costs.
Lobby group Don’t Burn Waipā – this photo comes from our files – was telling supporters about the Paewira application being suspended – while the EPA was telling The News to call back the next day.
Following a three-week hearing, Environmental Protection Authority chief executive Dr Allan Freeth emailed 2173 submitters last Wednesday to say the incinerator application had been suspended because the applicant had failed to pay costs.
Te Awamutu News 21 August 2025
Ahead of The News going to press, payment had not been received by Monday afternoon.
Pressure group Don’t Burn Waipā submitted against the application during the inquiry in Hamilton in June and July and went public with the EPA’s announcement via social media.
At the same time, the EPA declined to discuss the issue and told The News to call back the next day.
Paewira waste-to-energy plant project director Adam Fletcher said on Friday he was aware of the EPA email and Global Contracting Solutions intended to settle its bill.
“We have been making regular payments to the EPA all the way through. We have always intended to settle the bill,” Fletcher said.
He said payments were not up to date because costs had doubled one month before the board of inquiry began into the application in June.
“We are a bit bemused as to why they chose to do this now,” Fletcher said. “We are only two weeks away from the decision. It seems a bit non sensical.”
The cost of the application was confidential, Fletcher said.
Project director Adam Fletcher
EPA senior communications advisor Julia Scott-Beetham said the application was still suspended on Monday.
“Once full payment of all outstanding costs has been received, the EPA will notify all parties and resume processing the application,” she said.
Fletcher refused to discuss a further $40,665 outstanding resource consent processing costs owed to Waipā District Council since April 2024.
The application initially went to the council, before being called in to an independent board of inquiry by minister for the environment Penny Simmonds.
Under the Resource Management Act, the EPA may suspend the processing of consent applications if costs are outstanding, until payment is made in full.
Freeth said the suspension would pause all statutory processing timeframes, including the August 28 decision date.
Don’t Burn Waipa
