Council apologises for and explains building consent delays in lockdown

WITH restrictions to work under Alert Level 3, the Southland District Council has made apologies for the delay with building inspections.

The council released a statement yesterday in which it said it had noticed an increase in frustration from the building sector in the past few weeks.

‘‘There’s been an expectation that our building team would have been able to deal with your consent applications as fast as they came in. We’ve done our best, but the reality is were up against it at the moment.’’

In the first week of Alert Level 3, the council received 122 Covid19 building site safety plans to assess, along with the inspection bookings and it was operating with a reduced workforce.

Building staff were down from an average five or six inspections per inspector per day, to just four, due to the extra layer of communication relating to health and safety.

‘‘On our first day of inspections we had only one person on the road as we trialled new procedures and adjusted our approach for safety.’’

The statement also said the council implemented this week a new system to process consent applications faster.

The statement also said the council was getting a lot of private inquiries from people who were trying to push their jobs up the queue, but ‘‘queuejumping’’ did not work for a building control authority.

‘‘We’re not trying to make excuses. This is the hand we’ve been dealt right now and we’re trying to give you all the information we have, so that we can each fully understand the situation we find ourselves in.’’