Backpackers to house ex-prisoners
A Hastings backpackers will be turned into accommodation for released prisoners, the Department of Corrections has confirmed.
The property, A1 Backpackers, is tucked into the corner of Plunket and Stortford streets and will provide accommodation for reinstated prisoners right beside an established in-home childcare business.
Department of Corrections Lower North regional commissioner Paula Collins, said the service would commence in February 2020. Staff visited neighbouring properties on November 21 to communicate the decision.
‘‘As a result of our meetings with neighbours we will be raising the height of the fence that borders the property and installing frosted windows in parts of the property. ‘‘The feedback we have received has been valuable, and we hope to continue talking with local residents as we progress with setting up this service,’’ she said.
Collins said neighbours in the area had also been invited to put forward a representative to be part of a management committee to oversee the service.
‘‘This will give neighbours a chance to have a say on how the service will be run and learn more about how we work in our communities to support people to make positive changes’’.
Homes and Communities recently purchased the property, with the settlement date November 28.
Collins said there was no intention to use the property to accommodate those with convictions for child sex offences.
The premises would include 24/7 supervision in the form of a live-in residential manager, 24-hour security cameras on-site, all monitored by the service provider.
‘‘We know from research that by giving people 24/7 support and assistance with employment, education, training and life skills they will be more successful in their safe transition back to the community.’’.
A woman who lived near the backpackers said she was handed a letter by the Department of Corrections on Thursday.
‘‘I opened it up and read that they were going ahead with it. This has really brought the residents together, they’re just so appalled by it, she said.
Some residents were angry because they did not believe former prisoners should live in a residential area alongside young families, the elderly and women living on their own. Others said they were not opposed to the reintegration of prisoners, but felt they should have been given an opportunity to have a say before it reached this point.
The Department of Corrections provide about 1,100 accommodation spaces each year, and work with Ka¯ inga Ora – Homes and Communities (formerly Housing New Zealand) and partners including the Salvation Army, PARS and other social service agencies to deliver supported accommodation around the country.
A new earthquake research project will be a step towards better understanding New Zealand’s largest and most active fault.
The project comparing Japanese and New Zealand faults will shed light on the types of earthquakes expected from the Hikurangi subduction zone off the East Coast.
Stretching from the seafloor north of Gisborne and down to Marlborough, the Hikurangi fault is the country’s largest subduction zone, capable of producing devastating earthquakes and tsunamis.
In the zone, two tectonic plates have met and one – the Pacific plate – is diving under the other, the Australian plate.
Led by geophysicist Dr Brook Tozer, researchers at GNS Science hope to uncover more clues about future earthquake activity in the fault, by comparing its seismic recordings and data to similar data from the magnitude 9 ‘‘megathrust’’ earthquake that hit Japan in 2011.
‘‘This study will focus specifically on imaging the internal structure beneath Cook Strait region as well as the Tohoku region of Northeast Japan,’’ Tozer said.
Recent GNS research discovered evidence for a structural boundary under Cook Strait which could be similar to one that played a key part in determining the magnitude and rupture point of the Tohoku earthquake, which claimed more than 20,000 lives.
Tozer said the study would look at where the Hikurangi fault could rupture and the amount of slip (movement) that could occur.
Previously, the best data to draw on came from older evidence preserved in the geological record, which stretched back thousands of years, while the amount of slip during a megathrust quake was ‘‘even more poorly understood’’.
The amount of slip that happened during the 2011 event reached much further offshore than expected and the amount of slip was 70 per cent larger than had ever been recorded for a megathrust earthquake.
‘‘By comparing and contrasting [Tohoku] with the Southern Hikurangi megathrust, we hope to help identify whether or not our fault is also capable of slipping by such an enormous amount in a single event.’’
Tozer will draw on two decades of seismic data and compare the properties of both subduction zones, including the rock type, their physical properties and relationships with observed slip behaviour.
He and the team will also produce high-resolution 3D models of the two different region’s subsurface structure to study.
Earlier this year, Hikurangi Response Plan Project Lead Natasha Goldring said it’s not if there’s an earthquake, but when.
Civil Defence Emergency Management groups in the North Island have already been working on an emergency response plan for a magnitude 8.9 earthquake scenario.