22 October 2008
COMMUNITY HONOURS AWARDS ¾ 2008
The Mayor Bede O’Malley is pleased with the high calibre of nominations received for this year’s Community Honours Awards. The Council Sub-Committee now has the difficult task of deciding on the awards which will be made at a ceremony to be held on Thursday
27 November 2008.
Nominations are made on a confidential basis with the person nominated being asked for their consent before an Award is made. No fixed number of awards are made in any year. The Awards are a way that individual persons who have carried out meritorious voluntary community service in the Ashburton District can be rewarded publicly for their efforts
1 October 2008
BUILDING CONSENT ACCREDITATION
The Ashburton District Council has today (1st October 2008) received notice that it has been accredited as a Building Consent Authority.
The Building Act 2004 introduced a requirement that all Councils must attain the standard to act as a Building Consent Authority. This involved developing defined procedures, technical manuals and systems to fulfil the requirements of the act.
Only Councils that achieved accreditation as Building Consent Authorities would be able to issue Building Consents after the deadline date of 31 March 2009.
The Ashburton District Council issues almost 1400 Building Consents annually with a total building value of 120 million dollars. Of the 85 City, District and Regional Councils in New Zealand, Ashburton is the 64th Council to be accredited by International Accreditation New Zealand.
Brian Lester, Chief Executive Officer said “This is very important for the economy of the district. It is essential that we are able to continue to issue Building Consents for our Customers and we are delighted that the efforts of our staff have paid off in this way”.
John McKenzie, Environmental Services Manager said “Our Building Regulatory staff have made a huge effort to develop a system that complies with the governments’ directives, there has been some very positive outcomes – for instance we now issue 100% of Building Consents within the 20 day time frame prescribed in the act”