Three environmentalists have lost a High Court appeal against an order forcing them to pay more than $12,000 to the Taranaki Regional Council for the cost of an independent consents hearing.
Fiona Clark, Robert Taylor and Andrea Moore signed a submission on behalf of the lobby group Friends of the Waitara River asking for the hearing into an application to discharge wastewater into the sea off the river in 2011.
They were told they would have to pay for the hearing, but later refused to.
Justice Robert Dobson agreed that the three as individuals were responsible for the cost because the group was not incorporated at the time of the submission.
He declined to order High Court costs against the trio.