The wreck of the Rena will stay put on Astrolabe Reef.

A legal challenge against leaving the remains of the container ship on the reef has been dismissed by a High Court judge.

Gerard van Bohemen released his judgement just a few days before the matter was due to be heard in the High Court at Tauranga.

The Astrolabe Community Trust, an organisation funded by the insurers of the Rena which ran aground seven years ago, had applied to the High Court to dismiss an appeal by the Ngai Te Hapu against decision by the Environment Court for abandonment of the wreck and discharge of contaminants.

However, Judge van Bohemen dismissed the Ngai Te Hapu appeal and vacated next week's scheduled court hearing, because he believed 'there was no real prospect of the appeal succeeding”.

In summary, the judge said Ngai Te Hapu had failed to provide security of costs as ordered on April 11 2018 and failed to provide any explanation as to why no steps were taken to raise the security ordered by the court.

'There is no realistic prospect of the appeal succeeding because all substantive points of appeal relate to the initial decision of the Environment Court delivered May 18 2017. Any appeal against the decision was well out of time and no application was made for an extension of time.”

He said there is no merit in the contention the Environment Court made an error of law when deciding it did not have jurisdiction to require the removal of the wreck, in context of an application for resource consent to abandon the wreck.

'On Ngai Te Hapu's own case, the other substantive points of appeal are subsidiary to and intended to buttress the case for removal of the wreck. Accordingly, they serve little practical purpose if there is no jurisdiction to require removal of the wreck.”

'In any event, the other substantive points of appeal relate principally to the evaluation of evidence and determinations of fact by the Environment Court, and have little merit in the context of an appeal limited to points of law.

'There is not and cannot be any challenge to the factual findings by the Environment Court that all that can be done to ameliorate the presence of the wreck has been done, and that further works beyond those required by the consent conditions would have detrimental effects on Otaiti and would be a safety risk.

Judge van Bohemen said full reasons for these decisions will follow.