Building Minister congratultes STDC huge efforts

South Taranaki second council to get accredited Building and Construction Minister Clayton Cosgrove has congratulated South Taranaki District Council on being the second local authority, after Palmerston North, to gain accreditation as a building consent authority under the government’s tough new rules to help ensure buildings are designed, built and inspected right the first time.

“Councils all around the country have worked long and hard to prepare for accreditation,” Mr Cosgrove said in a letter to South Taranaki Mayor Mary Bourke. “Your council has now achieved it.”

Specialist advisors and auditors from International Accreditation New Zealand (IANZ) worked with the Council’s building control staff over several months this year to ensure building systems, processes, resources and procedures were up to scratch and properly documented. Only six minor remedial actions were required to gain accreditation.

Mr Cosgrove said the requirements for accreditation would benefit the Council’s building consent customers and the South Taranaki community. Registration as a Building Consent Authority is expected to follow next month.

The Building Consent Authority accreditation and registration scheme is among a suite of Building Act 2004 reforms to strengthen the building sector and improve public confidence, in the wake of problems such as leaky buildings. Other reforms include the licensing of building practitioners, and a top-to-bottom review of the New Zealand Building Code.

Councils struggling to meet the Government’s original November 30 deadline for accreditation are likely to be given extra time. Mr Cosgrove last month introduced into Parliament an amendment to the Building Act 2004 to extend the deadline to 30 June 2008.

South Taranaki Environment and IT Services Group Manager Graham Young said building control staff had worked hard on the accreditation process while keeping up with an unprecedented demand for building and resource consents this year.

“It’s quite an acheivement to have met the stringent accredition requirements with our existing staff numbers,” said Mr Young. “It’s a reflection of the level of commitment and professionalism that the building control staff bring to their roles.”

He said leaky homes problems centred in Auckland over the last few years had affected consumer confidence in some areas of building inspection and approval processes. “We think it’s important to do everything we can to demonstrate our commitment to providing excellent service, and the accredtiation process has been an important part of that,” said Mr Young.