Supply of materials crucial to new home construction

A drought of building materials hit Bay of Plenty builders as most manufacturing of supplied such as GIB and insulation is based in Auckland and not operating in the city’s level 4 lockdown. After talks with industry leaders, the Government agreed on Tuesday to allow manufacture of select products to resume in lockdown so house construction could continue in regions in level 2.

Comments before the Government rule change

Years of poor planning why big building corporate and manufacturing companies are based in Auckland, why not Wellington and Christchurch.

Rajendra S “Profitless Boom” aye? The reality is they are always going to pass on extra costs to the home buyer, as admitted in this article. Supply was already constrained pre the lockdown due to Covid, with house building costs already rising as a result. The reality is that Delta is absolutely indifferent to business needs. It’s been more than 18 months with Covid and businesses either adapt or die.

Rick F

And the good news just keeps on rolling in! Only 21 new cases, continuing encouraging signs that lockdown is working. Have we run out of vaccines? No, of course not. Will we run out of vaccines, as people keep claiming in these columns? Nope. Are we throttling back on vaccinations, as people keep claiming in these columns? No, we aren’t. Are our current vaccination rates amongst the highest in the OECD? Why yes they are. Fancy that.

Saliva testing under way? Tick another box. An incompetent shambles? Not even close.

Things turning out better than the permanently unhappy expected? Yep.

Alfred T

It’s the same for every industry and everyone. Calm down and read a book or something.

Jaime G

What we may find soon is when we as tradespeople can go back to sites in Auckland under L3 (what day is the question) we are going to find it hard to obtain materials manufactured or imported to Auckland due to the supplies required everywhere else. Because Auckland is the big port, most supplies come in there. Raw materials, timber etc. Because I work with only an apprentice on a 200+m2 house, we are unsafe even with the full PPE required. I can see us staying off for potentially longer due to supply issues which are far worse now due to this lockdown. Even longer with potentially no income.

Gary S

MIQ in the biggest city is ridiculous. Crippling industry nationwide. Slow vaccine roll out a shocker. No business know-how. Incompetent Government with unqualified ministers. It’s like asking an English teacher to teach Year 13 calculus which the Ministry of Education would never allow, so how come so many unqualified people are in Cabinet. They’re spending more time dividing our country with undemocratic ideas.

John Scott C

We should never have had the quarantin-free travel with Australia. We will have paid dearly for little gain. Also the MIQ in Auckland CBD is madness. Now even the building industry brought to its knees. Why don’t they do the saliva test, test everyone going to hospital. Two wards shut at Middlemore?

John B

We are an NZ specialised building material manufacturer in Auckland that uses 2 independent NZ operations to put the product together and distribute are finding the lockdown especially tough going. We supply mainly outside the Auckland district and have orders banking up. As tough as it for us, it is the end user, the builder who is affected the most by not being able to complete projects. And then ultimately the homeowner. There will no doubt be other issues to face post-lockdown with raw material supply, labour and freight.

Geoff T

Well now you are finding out what it feels like being in Auckland in level 4. My engineering business has been sitting idle because we aren’t essential meanwhile the overheads stay the same. Sorry builders but it’s not all about you there’s plenty of industries suffering be thankful you aren’t in hospitality.

Mike C

So basically the Government should have kept the whole country at the same alert level as Auckland because without Auckland most of the country can’t operate.

Level 3 won’t help a lot either as I guess we will be at level 3 for a week or two.

Glenn H

Comments after the Government rule change

All supplies are critical. No use having the GIB board, if you have no windows or doors to lock the building up etc. Building will just stop at next level of supply in job. Suppose something is better than nothing.

Stephen A

This just proves the Government had not prepared for another lockdown. Along with Delta level 2, businesses were not forewarned of the requirements to open. This Government lacks any foresight and is not proactive but reactive.

Mark X — Republished comments may be edited at the editor’s discretion.

Have your say by going to bayofplentytimes.co.nz and becoming a Premium subscriber.