" 'Historic Places Aotearoa (HPA) and ICONIC (Interests in Conserving the Identity of Christchurch) agree that the timing and the result to date is woeful and too little too late.’ "
The Media Release is as follows (with links to the submissions text):
PRESS RELEASE
Public submissions to a Draft Heritage Building and Places Recovery Programme for Greater Christchurch were invited by the Ministry of Culture and Heritage and closed on Friday 14 March 2014 – three years of waves of consultation since 2011. The final draft is three years too late.
Dr. Anna Crighton, President of HPA said:
'Historic Places Aotearoa (HPA) and ICONIC(Interests in Conserving the Identity of Christchurch) agree that the timing and the result to date is woeful and too little too late.’
'It shows that CERA has been acting with no formal heritage policy in place. Even then, the suggested programme, when finalised, would have no official standing as government policy.’
'To add to the debacle the New Zealand Historic Places Trust, New Zealand’s leading government advisory agent on heritage, have been reduced to submitting reports but not been involved in the final decision making on Christchurch's heritage buildings. We now find there is no intention of them being included in any future decisions.’
Crighton is asking for 'the document to be amended to at least include the NZHPT as equal partners in the decision making process and a government policy to be immediately fast tracked to become officially recognised by CERA as a government department'.
Given the manifest failure of CERA's processes to date one would have expected a discussion of additional future mechanisms to assist the recovery of those heritage buildings that remain. So far from doing so, the document in fact even fails to identify which key buildings remain and are in need of assistance. The failure to have in place an adequate programme for recovery of heritage highlights the urgent need for the MCH to develop an adequate template for heritage recovery to assist in any future major disaster. The present programme most definitely does not constitute an adequate basis for a such a template.
Dr Ian Lochhead, has said in ICONIC’s submission:
'The draft document adopts a stance of complacency that assumes that what has been achieved in terms of heritage
recovery is as much as could have been expected. IConIC is of the view that not only could much more have been done, but had the recovery of heritage been handled differently the recovery as a whole would be much further advanced.
'Far from presenting a roadblock to recovery it is becoming apparent that the indiscriminate destruction of heritage and character buildings, including seismically strengthened heritage buildings, will itself present a roadblock to recovery’.
Contact:
Dr. Anna Crighton
President
Historic Places Aotearoa
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