Candidate promises soil tests on orchard land | Wairarapa News | Local News in Wairarapa

WAIRARAPA National Party

candidate and Greytown property developer John Hayes promised yesterday he would get soil tests carried out at the Greytown orchard he is converting into a retirement village.

It has been revealed that hundreds of Wellington homes and nearly 5000 in Auckland have been built on sites contaminated during past use for horticulture and other industries.

Now Environment Minister Marian Hobbs has suggested a change in the law could resolve concerns about noting possible contamination on property information.

Mr Hayes is developing retirement homes on a 7.7ha of land at the north end of Greytown that he has owned since 1997. The land was formerly farmed as an apple orchard.

After being asked about possible contamination by the Wairarapa Times-Age yesterday, he said: "I didn't believe there was a problem so I didn't get the land tested," but the question having been raised he promised to now have soil tests carried out.

The former senior civil servant, who was selected as the National Party's candidate to contest the Wairarapa election last month, said he had not seen any signs of ill effects from possible chemical use on the land.

He said he didn't believe arsenic-based chemicals had been used at the orchard.

People who had lived on the land had lived to a ripe old age.

He said that no objections had been raised when he got council permission to redevelop the land and other orchards in the Greytown area had been converted to residential housing and no objections had been raised, he said.

Mr Hayes, who has a degree in agricultural science, said he had not observed signs that there was a problem with chemical residue in the soil.

The land lay fallow for three years before the retirement home development started and during the years he ran the property as an orchard he had a regime of minimum chemical use.

He said he lived on the land himself and had observed no ill effects on "himself, his wife or the dog".

He said that some of the four units at the Totaras at Greytown development had already been sold under a licence to occupy arrangement and no one had raised concerns about the safety of the land.