A change of tack has seen a Welcome Bay labourer arrested during drug raids in 2012 plead guilty to drug dealing charges, avoiding heading to trial later this year.

Isaac Kilby pleaded guilty to six charges relating to offering to supply cannabis and supplying methamphetamine when he appeared in Tauranga District Court on Thursday.

Four people were arrested and charged with methamphetamine-related charges during police raids in Welcome Bay and Arataki in 2012.

He was originally facing 21 charges in total but these were changed to representative charges at the request of his lawyer Tony Balme.

Kilby was one of four people arrested after a police raid on properties in Arataki and Welcome Bay in November 2012.

More than 50 police staff from Tauranga and Rotorua, with firefighters and hazardous materials teams, swooped on the two Tauranga suburbs on November 28, executing search warrants at three properties suspected of being P-labs.

Arataki woman Jessica Caulfield was also arrested in the raids. She pleaded guilty to procuring and possessing methamphetamine, possessing equipment/material with intent and producing/manufacturing methamphetamine/amphetamine last year.

On November 29, 2013, she was sentenced to six months home detention and ordered to complete 150 hours' community work.

Tauranga man Shaun McDonald was sentenced to three years' jail when he pleaded guilty to the same charges on November 1, 2013.

A fourth man, Troy Kakau, pleaded guilty to 12 drug-related charges on January 24.

He was sentenced to two years and six months in prison on March 6.

In court on Thursday Judge Peter Rollo told Kilby he was pleased the matter had been resolved before heading to trial. Kilby's sentencing date is yet to be set.