An investigation by Christchurch City Council has found no evidence people are sleeping on site at a controversial Chinese-owned bottling plant being constructed north of Christchurch.
Huge community opposition has been generated against plans by water company Cloud Ocean Water to operate a water bottling plant inside the old Kaputone Wool Scour site in Belfast.
The company's major shareholder is the Chinese-owned Ling Hai Group.
It is one of two water-bottling plants being constructed in Belfast with permission to extract nine billion litres of water a year.
The Christchurch City Council received complaints about people sleeping at the work site, but has determined them to be unfounded.
"The council has investigated and found there is no evidence of people sleeping on the site," Christchurch City Council general manager of consenting and compliance Leonie Rae said.
Critics say it's taking a resource that's already in trouble offshore, for free.
However, Ms Rae said further investigations are continuing into the Cloud Ocean Water Belfast site into "other matters relating to the Resource Management Act and the Building Act".
A WorkSafe spokesman also said they had received multiple concerns about the Kaputone Wool Scour water bottling plant site, and had visited it a number of times.
"As a result of the site visits we have issued a total of eight notices," the WorkSafe spokesman said.
"Improvement and Prohibition notices have been issued in relation to the concerns raised and observations made by the inspector relating to falls from heights, electrical safety and the wider workplace environment.
"We are continuing to monitor activity at the site and are following up on notices issued to ensure compliance with them."
A 20-year-old permit originally granted to the land's former owner, Kaputone, was taken over by the Chinese-owned enterprise in May this year.
More than 11,000 people have signed an online petition to stop the Cloud Ocean Water bottling plant in Christchurch from taking more than four million litres of aquifer water a day.
The petition organisers argue the permit could allow Cloud Ocean Water to remove up to 4.32 million litres per day, or 1.5 billion litres per annum, of ground water, for bottling.
SHARE ME