Proposal Environmental Considerations Rehabilitation FAQs About Winstone Aggregates

Belmont Quarry 

Situated in the Hutt Valley hills the Belmont Quarry has been building the foundations of Wellington for over 100 years.
The quarry serves a key part of the region’s supply chain and has supported essential infrastructure and transport projects such as Transmission Gully, the Northern Corridor and RiverLink. Its aggregate is vital for the region’s growth and resilience, making it indispensable to Wellington’s development.
Today, it continues to play a vital role by supplying around 40% of Wellington’s total aggregate needs and over half of the high-quality materials used in concrete for housing and road construction.
Belmont’s location close to Upper Hutt, Hutt City and Wellington City is crucial as transport costs are a major factor in the price of aggregate. Sourcing materials locally helps keep construction affordable for homes, schools, roads and public spaces in our communities. It also reduces emissions from long-distance transport, supporting our shared goals for a more sustainable future.

Why are we expanding the site? 

The Wellington region uses 8-10 tonnes of aggregates per person annually. As an example, the average house build requires around 250 tonnes of material we supply. 
Under current consent, the access to the high-quality rock is limited by overburden above the resource. Therefore, planning for additional overburden capacity is critical to ensuring a continued, sustainable supply of aggregate for the Wellington region for years to come.

What is an overburden?

Overburden is the natural material above the greywacke resource and largely comprises topsoil, clay, greensand, limestone and highly weathered greywacke, with minimal vegetation. There is currently no commercial market for overburden despite offers to repurpose it. Transporting it off site is cost prohibitive and could make quarry operations uneconomic

Our Proposal 

We are proposing to expand the quarry into a small portion of the neighbouring Belmont Regional Park, which is owned by the Department of Conservation (DOC) and managed by Greater Wellington Regional Council. 
By doing so, we can extend the life of the quarry by 40 years, which is critical to maintaining an affordable supply of aggregate to Wellington. Without Belmont, construction costs would increase significantly in the region.  
In exchange for the land we need, we are developing a land swap package that will be presented to DOC. Our intent is to transfer land we own with higher ecological value into the Belmont Regional Park, increase recreational opportunities for the community and fund environmental projects in the area. It is not possible to provide an exact like-for-like swap, as access to the land areas is different, however our aim is for the overall package to be net-positive for the community and environment. 

Fast Track Consent 

If a land swap package is agreed with DOC, we will lodge a formal application under the Fast Track Approvals Act for consent to expand the quarry. The Fast Track process requires us to provide the full suite of environmental, engineering and technical reports that would also be needed under a normal RMA process. The benefit of the fast track is we can deal with all the different consenting requirements together. This means rather than a 3–5-year process across multiple different pieces of legislation, we would hope to run a more streamlined and efficient approval process. 
We are in the process of updating all our original reports to reflect current conditions on site and aim to lodge our application by the end of 2025.