15 Sep 2015

Brownlee happy with quake repairs

3:29 pm on 15 September 2015

Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Minister Gerry Brownlee is happy with the standard and progress of the Earthquake Commission repair programme, he says.

Christchurch Construction.

Christchurch Construction. Photo: RNZ / Alexander Robertson

That's despite calls by some residents for a royal commission into how the programme operates.

The Earthquake Commission has set up a team of 35 staff to deal with the ongoing issue of defective repairs.

Last week, more than 100 Christchurch home-owners launched a class-action against the Commission, arguing it had failed to meet its legal obligations on repairs.

In a recent report on some structural repairs exempted from a building consent, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment found more than a third of the surveyed homes did not meet the Building Code.

Mr Brownlee today told media he was happy with the standard and progress of the repair programme.

He said there have been almost 70,000 repairs and most had been carried out under Schedule One of the Building Act, meaning they did not require consents.

"Where there are issues, as there have been recently, then you call on the guarantees that are also required under the Building Act and you ahead and you make sure you fix those.

"I think there's a lot of people getting a bit excited about the prospects of tipping the whole thing up but it's been very successful."

Mr Brownlee said it had been successful, and largely due to the quality of the repair programme being run.

One of the concerns residents had after the quake was losing equity in their homes and that had not happened largely due to the quality of the repair programme, he said.

Get the RNZ app

for ad-free news and current affairs