Thursday, Jan 5, 2017
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It’s movie time
Movies have been the activity of choice for hundreds of Ashburton families over the past few days. Among the youngsters spending a chilly afternoon indoors yesterday were Lachlan Ford, 11 and Alex Ford, 8.
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Building work hits high numbers BY SUE NEWMAN
SUE.N@THEGUARDIAN.CO.NZ
Lewis’ form too good P16
The numbers might have been down but at $129 million, the value of building work in the Ashburton District during 2016 remains high. During the year 960 building consents were issued, 12.7 per cent fewer than the previous year, but that drop-off in numbers could, in part, be laid at the door of changes in the Building Act, Ashburton District Council building services manager Michael Wong says. Those changes have allowed some work such as bathroom renovations, replacing some windows and erecting silos to be exempt from consent requirements, he said. Records were broken all round in 2015, when 1100 consents with a value of $138.757 million were issued and
while numbers and values were down last year, they were above the 10-year average. The area of most significant decline last year was new home consents. These were down from 216, with a value of $79.466 million to 177 valued at $62.625 million last year. Numbers were also pumped up in 2015 by a $4.88 million hospital build and $4.6 million for a new church. Perhaps the most significant change year-on-year was in dairy and milking sheds. In 2015 consents for 16 dairy and milking sheds were issued, valued at $9.209 million; last year just two consents for milking sheds were issued with a total value of $750,000. The 2016 figures did receive a boost, however from a $3 million consent for
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an aged care facility, $1.4 million for a retirement village and $2.856 million for a medical centre. The 2017 year looks set to set a new consent records with 90 consents already on the books in various stages of the consent process, Wong said. Those consents represented $26.7 million worth of work, well up on the 61 consents valued at $8.96 issued in January last year. Of the 90 consents currently in the system, 34 are for new houses; in January last year 16 of the 61 consents were for new homes. “We are expecting a busy year on the building consent side of things, along with having to implement the new swimming pool rules (started January 1) and earthquake-prone regulations (proposed to start July 1),” he said.
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