What’s the reason for delaying repairs to our house?

Like a lot of people, I have a badly damaged house. Every wall has cracks and it has been clad in plywood since the February quake.

After reading your article saying that tradespeople are losing faith and leaving Christchurch for work elsewhere (June 20), I ran a check list and could not figure out why the rebuild has not started for most of residential Christchurch. Insurance: My house is insured. EQC claims: Three lodged. EQC inspection: My house has been inspected twice and a full list of the damage is available.

EQC costings: Although I can’t be told a figure, the damage is well over $100,000 and it will be apportioned (no worries about that).

Land zone: Green for go but there is no technical category as the property is in Mt Pleasant.

EQC land report: Inspectors have been through and signed it off as in perfect condition.

Repairs have started? No. So what’s the hold up?

As we and the house go through a second winter with no cladding, smashed windows and cracked interior wall coverings, the property seems to be stuck in the EQC infinite loop.

Nobody can tell me what happens now, or when work will start. It seems all it’s waiting for is an office worker with a massive workload to tick a box and say let’s go.

It seems crazy that there are tradespeople chomping at the bit to get stuck in and there is money available but everything is dead in the water. Why? JIMMY BANKS

Mt Pleasant

The statement that progress is slow is true for some, for reasons specific to each. It isn’t true of the Canterbury Home Repair Programme, the residential repairs being carried out by Fletcher EQR on behalf of EQC.

Fletcher EQR updates progress on its website,eqr.co.nz, each week.

We have project-managed almost 80,000 repair jobs over the past 20 months, including more than 17,000 full-scope repairs. In recent months we have returned up to 100 houses each day fully repaired to their owners, and paid contractors $3 million each day. On a monthly basis that’s 2000 houses and $60 million.

We know we need to go even faster. In the meantime, I have a responsibility to the 14,000 staff, contractors and tradespeople who have worked on the programme to ask for due recognition of their efforts.

Riccarton

Just a shell:

Over time, New Zealand will move to more sustainable forms of energy. But coal is still, and will be for some years, one of the most cost-effective options for generating electricity and for powering our industry.

Because of this, the mining sector is committed to finding solutions to reduce emissions, but these solutions have to be practical and must not undermine the economy and New Zealanders’ standard of living.

DON ELDER CEO, Solid Energy

Addington