Noise Abuse From Watties- please help!

Catherine from Hastings Central

Hello neighbours, we live in Nelson street & we are having terrible trouble with industrial noise coming from the Watties factory. We have lived here in our house for nearly 30 years & we were ok until 3 years ago when the company condensed to & upped production at the King's street site in Hastings. Since then, we have suffered the worst possible industrial abuse, have reported hundreds & hundreds of issues & lost thousands of hours of sleep. We thought we'd let you know where we've got to over this time- council have clocked the noise in our garden at well over the district plan limits, Watties have admitted that this is so & have recently employed the acoustic consultants Marshall Day to assess their output. There are now plans in place to try & reduce some noise issues in a couple of spots, both here & over the railway line/Caroline road side but this hasn't happened yet. However- in the past few months fresh changes have made things a whole lot worse for us...unbearable! We have observed that the noise often elevates late in the evening & through the night & will many times run for days & days without letting up. At these times, the factory are in breach of the District Plan. As I write, this there is a wall of sound at our back door that sounds like a giant washing machine on spin. The sound goes right through our house. There is nowhere on our section that we can get away from it. It has been running this way for a solid 60 hours. We are not receiving useful assistance from council & are being ignored by factory management. We want our lives back! We want to be able to use our own garden & to sleep at night. We have discovered that absolutely no one is monitoring this factory at any time, so basically, they do whatever they like, whenever they like. We desperately need your help! If you are also being affected by the factory in any way at all please, please, please now is the time to speak up. You may also be affected by the canning place Jamestrong (same site) please report these people too. Their crashing of cans, airbrakes etc is incessant & horrendous & unacceptable in a residential area! You can call the council on 8715000 & ask to speak to Tony Mananui during the day, or, phone the same number after hours & report that way. Mick Farrow will be rung at the factory & an email will be sent to Tony. This also becomes a permanent record & once there are more of us reporting, council will have to take further action. Just the two of us & our immediate neighbour isn't enough clout. If you have any useful advice or would like to offer support we'd be very grateful to hear from you. We are shattered! Photo is taken from our back wall. We desperately need protection from this monster. Yes, Watties is an important employer in our community but that doesn't give them the right to be a bullying abuser. Time they took responsibility for the mess they've made through the years & the way they treat the neighbourhood. Industrial abuse is not ok! People matter too! Cheers, Rob & Catherine