>Community Update – 30 June 2011

>

Mt Pleasant Facebook

Have you joined the Mt Pleasant Community Facebook page yet? Our site address is:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Mt-Pleasant-community-Christchurch/118824294860099

This site is updated very regularly with all things relevant to Mt Pleasant Residents and is the best way for us to get a message out to residents quickly. With over 800 visits this week alone the site is becoming very popular.

Mt Pleasant Farmers Market

The contractors working on McCormacks Bay road have unfortunately left our Farmers Market site in a terrible mess for this week’s market. In order to retain the traders and the market at our site we need to have a working bee 9.00am tomorrow (1 July). Please come and help if you can – our market is too important to our community to lose. See you at the Community Centre with a broom and shovel.

The Bay Harbour New is coming back – Delivery People Needed

The Bay Harbour Community newspaper is being re-launched and needing the local community support to help deliver to residents letterboxes. Walkers required for Sumner, Redcliffs, Moncks Spur, Balmoral Hill, Mt Pleasant, Heathcote, Ferrymead & Southshore. Great way to keep fit and earn some extra money at the same time.

For more information- please phone Lea 962 – 8199 / 962 8197 please leave message or email lea@simediasolutions.co.nz

P.S. The good thing about the Bay Harbour coming back is it is giving all Residents Groups its own column each fortnight!

Port Hills geotechnical work continues

Hazard assessment and repair work across the Port Hills is being carried out by geotechnical engineers contracted to the Christchurch City Council and other contractors.

The Port Hills Geotechnical Group is working across the hills to identify rockfall and land movement hazards and have remedial work carried out to prevent damage to properties and to protect key roads.

This work is continuing and is not affected by the Government zoning announcements of last week.

The priority so far has been on the clearing of hazards from key roads to ensure access is maintained to all areas. All areas are being reassessed following the earthquakes of 13 June and work being carried out to address hazards.

For more information about specific geotechnical work in your area, please email <javascript:DeCryptX('qpsuijmmthfpufdiAddd/hpwu/o{')> porthillsgeotech@ccc.govt.nz <javascript:DeCryptX('qpsuijmmthfpufdiAddd/hpwu/o{')> .

For Children in Stressful times

The following websites might be useful for any children under stress from the quake activity

www.safeandsoundnz.co.nz and http://www.jojosplace.org/

Weekly update from Roger Sutton, Chief Executive, Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority – Friday 24 June 2011

For many weeks now, we’ve been talking about the huge amount of work that’s been going on to provide the certainty we know people have been so anxious to get about their homes and communities.

This week we have been able to take a significant step forward with the announcement by the Prime Minister John Key and our Minister Gerry Brownlee of the results of much of the work that’s been going on. The earthquakes of September and February and the subsequent sizeable aftershocks have taken a huge toll on Canterbury. This has been the largest natural disaster that we have ever faced in New Zealand.

While there’s clearly been very hard and difficult news this week for some residents, for the great majority of people there’s been positive news.

About 100,000 people have been given the green light for repairs and rebuilding of their homes and they can continue working with EQC and their insurers to start doing that immediately.

For around 5000 people in the residential red zone, it has been the confirmation of what many may have already realised – that their land has been extensively damaged and it is not feasible to rebuild there at the moment. Regardless of that, we understand the news is still incredibly difficult for a number of people. While some may be ready to decide quickly that they want to move on, others will find it much harder to come to terms with what is happening.

We’re committed to helping people through this process and providing as much support and assistance as we can. A series of community meetings is underway in the worst affected suburbs to provide people from the red zone with further information. We will keep communicating with people and listening to them in the weeks ahead. We will also be setting up community hubs where people can go to talk to key agencies in one place and be linked to support services. We also have a dedicated helpline in place – 0800779997.

People who want to go online to get information can also go to www.landcheck.org.nz

We know that’s already been enormously popular with more than two million hits in the first hour, and over 522,000 individual property searches.

It is critically important people do not feel rushed in making their decisions. We will be getting letters out to people in the next couple of months, and they’ve got nine months to work out what is best for them. They’re strongly encouraged to talk to their insurers and financial advisers as they consider their options.

We’ve said all along that this is a long journey and that unfortunately we aren’t able to provide all the answers at once. I know that will continue to frustrate people, particularly those who were not left with the certainty they had hoped for yesterday.

I can assure people from the 10,000 properties in the orange zone that teams working on this will continue to bring the same dedication to the task to deliver them the answers they need. We are prioritising the work from those worst affected from September. As with those in the red zone, we must make sure we’ve got the information right so the decisions made are robust. The job has been further complicated unfortunately by the additional damage suffered during the 13 June earthquakes. I want to thank everyone who has been involved in the tremendous amount of work that’s gone on to date to provide answers about properties and land. They’ve worked tirelessly across a range of very complex and technical issues and information.

And I want to say to those who have been provided with certainty this week that we’ve appreciated their patience through what we know has been a very tough and frustrating process. To those still waiting, please know we will be doing everything possible to bring the answers to you as soon as we can.

Roger Sutton
Chief Executive
Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority