Hon Gerry Brownlee 

Minister for Earthquake Recovery

Hon Maurice Williamson

Minister for Building and Construction 

18 February 2014       Media Statement

Positive audit result for CCC consents

Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Minister Gerry Brownlee and Building and Construction Minister Maurice Williamson today announced no safety problems have been found in a random audit of building consents issued by Christchurch City Council.

International Accreditation New Zealand revoked the council’s building consent accreditation in July 2013 following its inability to bring its processes up to the required standard.

The Government then appointed Doug Martin as Crown Manager to improve the consenting department.  It also asked the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment to support Mr Martin to conduct a random audit of recent consents to check whether they were sound.

It looked at the paperwork associated with 104 building consents issued prior to July 2013, of which 82 related to residential and 22 to commercial buildings.

Mr Brownlee says the audit has found that in all cases the technical decisions were sound and no safety problems were found.

“This result provides further confidence around the Christchurch rebuild,” Mr Brownlee says.

Mr Williamson says the audit did however reinforce previous concerns, which the Crown Manager’s Action Plan is already addressing, including the need for the council’s processing procedures to be better streamlined.

In addition to the 104 consents in the random audit another seven have been brought to MBIE’s attention by engineers, who have raised concerns about inadequate designs and other issues.

“I will make an announcement about the outcome of MBIE’s investigation into these buildings, which pose no current safety issues, soon,” Mr Williamson says.

ENDS

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