CommunityAction for People and Planet. P.O. Box 68, Motueka. Phone 021 174 0400 email : duncaneddy@yahoo.com
Light Among the Shade
Nelson Mail, 14 December 2006, by Beth Catley
Riwaka orchardist Inglis Horticulture will this summer test light-coloured shade cloth as a possible replacement for the red netting that has raised the ire of some neighbouring residents.
Manager Richard Inglis said the trials using pearl-coloured and white cloth were to test new technology, not to appease those who disliked the red cloth.
However, he conceded that if the lighter colour proved usable, he hoped it would have the added benefit of being less distasteful to critics.
``We don't want to annoy people. We want to live in this town too, and we have been here a bloody sight longer than those people up on the hill.''
Some of the criticism being levelled at him had become extremely personal, he said. ``It's not a personal thing, it's business.''
He said whether the cloth was visually unpleasant was a ``subjective'' consideration, and he could just as easily complain about his neighbour's purple roof.
Inglis Horticulture has so far put up an estimated 15 to 20ha of red shade cloth over its 140ha of apple trees.
The cloth also covers large blocks of land in the Motueka Valley and Lower Moutere.
A public meeting on the issue in Riwaka last month attracted 100 people, and the Tasman District Council has received numerous complaints.
However, at a meeting last Wednesday, the council's environment and planning committee rejected a request from the Motueka and Golden Bay community boards and residents to look at whether the council should regulate the use of the cloth.
Committee chairman Richard Kempthorne said the vote was close, but a slim majority felt the area was a working rural environment, and that undue constraints should not be put on fruitgrowers involved in a commercial activity.
Mr Inglis said that after a recent trip to France and Italy, where the lighter-coloured cloth was used, he believed it might work almost as well as the red cloth.
The cloth is largely to protect fruit from hail, but also results in higher yields, larger fruit, less sunburn and wind rub, and helps to develop the red colour in apples.
Community Action for People and Planet coordinator Duncan Eddy, who organised the Riwaka meeting, said Inglis Horticulture's plans were a ``positive move''.
``It should go down a lot better with their neighbours than the red cloth.''