Nine years on, Dalziel apologises over failings
Christchurch mayor Lianne Dalziel has formally apologised for the city council’s failings in allowing dangerous buildings to go up or to remain standing.
She delivered the apology yesterday at a private reception for relatives of those killed and others who survived serious injuries in the February 22, 2011 earthquake. The reception, at Christchurch Arts Centre’s great hall, came 24 hours after a memorial service for the 185 who lost their lives nine years ago.
Dalziel acknowledged the council had neglected its responsibility for preventing poorly designed buildings from being constructed, grieving brother David Selway said after the apology.
Selway said the design of the Canterbury Television (CTV) building ‘‘didn’t meet the bar’’, but the design had ‘‘slipped through’’.
The 115 people who died when the building collapsed and caught fire included Selway’s sister, clinical psychologist Susan Selway. She had been working in the building but had planned to leave because she did not feel safe in it.
Another 18 people were killed in the collapse of the PGC building, eight when building facades fell on buses, and another 52 elsewhere in Christchurch.
Selway said those who spoke out about deficient buildings were the true ‘‘heroes’’, and said Dalziel apologised for the council’s mistakes in not meeting their responsibility to stop ‘‘bad designs’’.
‘‘Sadly, the people who designed [the CTV building] were aware of the deficiencies, it had been pointed out to them several times prior to that and they stepped away from it,’’ he said.
The mayor earlier said she had wanted to make the move ‘‘for a long time’’, and suggested she could do so now ‘‘inquiries and investigations related to the tragic events . . . have concluded’’ and laws had changed.
Bruce McEachen – father of Matti McEachen, who was killed by falling masonry – said the apology would help, in time. ‘‘Today, obviously, not quite so much . . . it will take a little while for it to sink in.’’