Centre proving stressing blessing

So when the wind blows in gusts greater than 100kmh, it’s evacuation time for Gore’s MLT Event Centre. Issues with the centre’s roof, revealed only in a December report, have led the Gore District Council to take what chief executive Steve Parry calls the ‘‘cautious and conservative’’ approach of evacuating the building in high winds.

The centre has been in use since 2009 without any identified problems resulting from the lack of lateral support from the trusses to the purlin.

But Parry needn’t purr soothingly about this. During the past decade, children, adults and teens using that centre have been hazarding a risk they didn’t know about. Neither, until late last year, did the council.

Yes, it has developed an evacuation protocol. No, it did not announce this – at least not to the wider public.

Feel free to discuss among yourselves how satisfactory that is.

The centre has been a real benefit for the community but it has also been beset with problems the potential dangers, and eventual costs, of which are concerning.

The council didn’t build the centre but took ownership from the Gore Multisports Centre Charitable Trust, which handed it over the day before the building opened.

The trust no longer exists but it would be good if the trustees were to step forward and help us all understand some of the questions arising from the growing catalogue of problems.

New buildings oftentimes have issues and the emergence of periodic problems with the system that takes warm air from the ice rink and uses it to heat the swimming pool have been unwelcome. And the fact that some of the building’s designs have been described as ‘‘an alternative solution to the Building Code’’ might raise eyebrows, although these measures seem to have been identified as peculiar, rather than themselves problematic.

It was when cracks appeared last August on a structural wall underneath the seating area that concerns really ramped up. Consulting engineer Tony Major, who had not designed the building but signed off on it for consent purposes, called them cosmetic.

It’s true that this is the man who apologised for below-standard work with Invercargill’s Stadium Southland, which in 2010 collapsed under heavy snow. But the Gore council’s own building inspectors also had a sign-off role on the MLT Centre.

And yet repair work around the centre’s seating area has been deemed necessary and the council is funding this by loan. How much will that cost? Good question.

On top of which – literally – the newly recognised roof issues will need to be repaired. Eventually. Parry says he hopes there won’t be too many issues for regular stadium users in the winter months before the roof is fixed.

Again, how much will that cost? Another good question, particularly since it’s ratepayers in the gun for the expense.

This was not a matter Gore councillors felt motivated to probe, particularly, at this week’s council meeting. In public anyway.

Quite this degree of apparent stoicism isn’t a good look when it’s public money, and public safety, you’re accountable for.

The fact that some of the building’s designs have been described as ‘‘an alternative solution to the Building Code’’ might raise eyebrows.