Chris Skelton/Stuff
Thousands of tyres left in an Amberley yard for years were ignited in a second fire in the yard in three years. The pile of between 120,000 and 160,000 tyres at the Racecourse Rd yard has been the subject of great contention, and even a lengthy court battle, over the past few years. The problems started in February 2016 when Michael Le Roy, the lessee of the yard, started storing tyres at the property for 2016 Tyre Recycling Ltd. The company involved later changed its name to Annexure Tyre Services Ltd, and Peter George Benden became its sole director. In December, Benden was fined $36,000 by the Environment Court for contravening a court order by not removing the tyres.
The situation in Amberley has been murky for years, with breached court enforcements and bankruptcies adding to the confusion, and even last year ECan was unclear about who officially owned the tyres. The man who leased the Racecourse Rd yard where the fire happened, Michael Le Roy, started storing end-of-life tyres on the property in February 2016.
CHRIS SKELTON/Stuff
Tyres are only deemed an environmental concern once they are on fire and leak contaminants into surface or groundwater. He was collecting them for two companies he was linked to: Tyre Recycling Services New Zealand Ltd and 2016 Tyre Shredding Ltd. Just a month earlier, in January 2016, the High Court had granted an injunction preventing Le Roy and his linked companies from having anything to do with tyre recycling or tyre collections for three years.
Chris Skelton/Stuff
Black smoke billows from the fire at the large tyre pile at a yard on Racecourse Rd on Amberley on Friday.
A 63-year-old man who has been charged with arson in relation to a large fire at a massive tyre pile in North Canterbury has been granted interim name suppression on the day he was due to make his first court appearance. The man did not appear in the Christchurch District Court on Tuesday as scheduled, but was granted a registrar’s remand to February 23. On Friday a large fire broke out at the yard on Racecourse Rd in Amberley, leaving a huge plume of smoke billowing into the air so dense it could be seen 45km away in Christchurch.