Hard News by Russell Brown

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Hard News: Walking upright again

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  • Sacha, in reply to Tamsin6,

    an article in The Press online

    This one? Linking would help the rest of us - though as noted by Russell recently, Stuff do have a habit of changing their stories rather than posting new ones as facts emerge.

    The Press is now saying

    quite

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report

  • Sacha, in reply to BenWilson,

    dynamic environment

    Heh

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report

  • Sacha,

    From that story:

    Christchurch Central MP Brendon Burns said there needed to be more public debate about the future of the cathedral.

    "We just get a sense that the cathedral is proceeding towards a major demolition option without the public debate that many of us believe should happen," he said.

    "It is profoundly disturbing for the community not to be engaged on this issue as I think it deserves to be."

    Chair of heritage campaign group Iconic, Dr Ian Lochhead, said the order was "appalling".

    Let's see if anyone can more forcefully join the dots for local voters during an election campaign rather than wringing their soft hands over this.

    The audience seemed none too pleased with Key during the eqnz parts of this week's Press-hosted leaders debate.

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report

  • Isaac Freeman,

    I agree with the general sentiment of Christchurch people on the film: too soon for me. I'm glad it's been made, and perhaps there's an audience for it elsewhere, but it'll be a fair few years before I'd watch it myself.

    My girlfriend Kate said she'd like to see a documentary that explained more about the geology of the quakes. That I'd watch. I'd also watch a documentary about the past and future of planning for earthquakes.

    While a large part of it is just not wanting to revisit traumatic events, I think there's also a sense that it's not a good time to obsess about the past. What I'm hungry for is information about the future, which there's precious little of.

    Christchurch • Since Feb 2007 • 134 posts Report

  • Ian Dalziel,

    19th floor elevations...
    Here are some great photos from inside the Hotel Grand Chancellor posted on today's Press website (click through on the photo)

    Christchurch • Since Dec 2006 • 7953 posts Report

  • Hilary Stace, in reply to Ian Dalziel,

    Amazing photos. The last time I was in that hotel was for the Autism NZ conference in 2009 - our Russell was also speaking at it. They had the conference and dinner in that large area near the top of the building. I stayed there for about three nights and remember looking out over Christchurch at night, and in the dawn, from a view similar to that one on the 19th floor.

    Wgtn • Since Jun 2008 • 3229 posts Report

  • Sacha, in reply to Ian Dalziel,

    Great photos. Rebecca Macfie has a few from her preview of the public bus tour. She notes:

    Finally, the Cathedral, which is about to undergo “partial” demolition to make it safe. Exactly what that means, and how much will be left at the end, Bishop Victoria Matthews can’t or won’t say – and this morning’s lead in the Press suggests she and the Anglican Church Property Trust are under pressure from the Government to get it down. The church has likewise failed to disclose the nature and extent of the structural damage, although you don’t have to be a chartered engineer to see that it’s in a bad way. In its place, says Bishop Matthews, will be a “combination of old and new”.

    It’s a sign of how exhausted we all are, and how blunted our emotions, that the church’s fuzzy statements about the future of what many regard as the city’s most important building has aroused barely a whimper of response. Christchurch, a city that has been the site of vicious and passionate heritage wars in the past – over the museum and the Arts Centre especially – seems to be too tired to fight for ChristChurch Cathedral. Perhaps now that the people are finally to be allowed in to see their brutalised, diminished city, they will decide the time has come to fight for the little that remains.

    .

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report

  • Sacha,

    Architect Miles Warren talks about injecting residential usage back into Christchurch's centre.

    Our city blocks are, compared to most cities, quite large: 100m by 200m, which immediately suggests a built perimeter, and green squares within. We have the perfect example in the two quadrangles of the Arts Centre. The best way to promote this is that the council or some other entity should be bold and develop a whole city block to demonstrate the solution. There is a great opportunity to do this with the land the council owns on the former Para Rubber site and on the Tuam St carpark site.

    Around the perimeter, if you build two or three-storey apartments on top of retail or offices, so that the apartments look into tree-lined streets on one side and contained green squares on the other, the outcome would be very attractive and, most importantly, affordable.

    The worst thing that could happen is to have single-storey shops along those city streets with verandas plastered with signs.

    ...

    Apartments and townhouses haven't been built in the central city to date simply because areas like Merivale and Fendalton are just over five minutes away from the city centre. The issue remains that the apartments that have been built recently have all been in the million-dollar-plus category, not the building type that the average person can purchase, develop or lease.

    And, if greater density and affordability is to be pursued we cannot just plonk blocks of flats in the south and east of the city. They will not be seen as attractive, they have to have something else - and that is green space.

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report

  • Tamsin6, in reply to Sacha,

    Sorry about not linking, I posted hurriedly while still at work, noticed I had originally not even said where I saw the article and managed to edit to correct that. By the time the kids were in bed and I was online again, the article was a different version so didn't add a link.

    London • Since Dec 2007 • 133 posts Report

  • Sacha, in reply to Tamsin6,

    Sorry, nothing personal. Has happened a bit lately and one of the things I always appreciate here is how people provide the source.

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report

  • Ken Sparks,

    In reply to Isaac Freeman
    All the subjects you mention are addressed in ‘When A City Falls’ albeit quite briefly in some cases but the film does look toward the future in an interesting way. There are also plans to release a DVD at some stage which will include extended interviews and other stories that didn’t make it into the cinema version. I’m hopeful that the film’s director, Gerard Smyth, who also shot most of it, will continue to shoot aspects of the recovery and rebuild but he probably needs a bit of a rest before that – it’s been a busy time for the wonderful team that have put it all together.
    For more info this is the facebook page.

    Cox’s Creek • Since Apr 2011 • 60 posts Report

  • Ken Sparks,

    The same facebook page that I just noticed Russell has already linked to - duh...

    Cox’s Creek • Since Apr 2011 • 60 posts Report

  • Ian Dalziel, in reply to Louise Hall,

    small world test #178...

    My family and I have relocated from ChCh to Dunedin for work, with the added benefit of escaping the quakes and continuing struggles.

    Louise, after some random penny-dropping I'm thinking we've met and I'm your mum's neighbour in Petrie St, I hope you are enjoying Dunedin, it's a different vibe to Chchch, huh?

    Christchurch • Since Dec 2006 • 7953 posts Report

  • Rob Stowell,

    My girlfriend Kate said she’d like to see a documentary that explained more about the geology of the quakes. That I’d watch.

    @Isaac- not exactly riveting, but this is the first of a series of UC lectures on aspects of the quake, mostly dealing with the goelogy.

    More here: http://www.communityed.canterbury.ac.nz/earthquake_lectures.php

    Whakaraupo • Since Nov 2006 • 2120 posts Report

  • Just thinking,

    Apologies, the rumour I shared about Roger giving in his resignation was wrong.
    However his absence from view untill this last week was out of character for him and inline with the CERA silence.

    Putaringamotu • Since Apr 2009 • 1158 posts Report

  • Joe Wylie, in reply to Just thinking,

    Apologies, the rumour I shared about Roger giving in his resignation was wrong.

    People want to believe in Roger Sutton as someone who's somehow above politics. After the February 22 quake he created enormous goodwill when he oversaw the restoration of power as head of Orion. When he turned up to public meetings on his bike with his rolled-up chart he impressed as speaking from the heart on matters of vital importance that he thoroughly understood.

    So it doesn't ring right when Sutton's reduced to demeaning nonsense such as describing the container mall as 'funky' in his recent awkward media briefing. Along with that beady-eyed old rooster Grizz Wyllie (no relation) his picture appears in CERA's patronising 'Talk It Over' ad campaign, which is a huge sick joke to those who've attempted to get answers from the overhyped helpline in recent weeks. Does someone's market research tell them that Sutton and Wyllie are 'trusted'? Would Grizz get the call if Roger really did resign?

    Someone once described conspiracy theories as attempts to explain why bad things happen to good people. There's an element of that behind the Sutton resignation rumours. People desperately need to believe. It's Labour's stated policy that Sutton keeps his job and is given the freedom to do it, rather than have his reputation gradually squandered as a shill for an otherwise faceless bureaucracy.

    flat earth • Since Jan 2007 • 4593 posts Report

  • Just thinking,

    Does anyone have stats on injuries from the quake?
    We remeber the dead & rightly so, but what of cardiomyopathy & suicide, will these be recorded as quake deaths?.
    Huge advances in medicine leave us with the wounded where in earlier generations there would be more dead.
    I raise this as my place of work announced "no deaths", but we still have many out on ACC 9months on.
    Will we ignore this community and fail to recognises there physical loss or will we keep a public record of the number of amputees & paraplegics et al?

    Putaringamotu • Since Apr 2009 • 1158 posts Report

  • Just thinking, in reply to Joe Wylie,

    Well said Joe.

    Putaringamotu • Since Apr 2009 • 1158 posts Report

  • Hebe, in reply to Just thinking,

    Does anyone have stats on injuries from the quake?

    I saw some stats of hospital treatment a while ago and basically it was miraculous there were not more. Your question though has prodded me into commenting on a related untold quake issue that affects my family, so much so that we’re on the point of engaging the help of the media. Here goes:

    My beloved shredded a major ligament in his leg on February 22 sometime in the scramble out of the multi-storey office block in a deadly corner of Manchester St and his run through town as buildings came down around him. As a result of running on adrenaline and working two and a bit jobs in the two months after the quake he noticed a sore leg, figured it was torn muscles, and pushed on. By May the pain was worse and, not being one for painkillers, he went to the doc, then a specialist under ACC. The a scan booked (cancelled due to June shake an hour before), next scan canned by big snow. Finally scanned, in August specialist says surgery needed and sends file to ACC.

    And there the file sits. We are unable to access our ruinous health insurance policy cover because ACC are involved, ACC will not reply in any meaningful way to our “what’s happening” questions other than to say the case in the system being processed. Meanwhile beloved is in increasing and constant pain, unable to do his usual activities, and understandably in very short temper .

    How many others are caught in similar circumstances?

    (Apologies for the tedious medical notes but it’s a context thing – and I need to vent. A grizzly bear and two teenage boys are getting to me in a little house.)

    Christchurch • Since May 2011 • 2899 posts Report

  • Jackie Clark,

    That sucks, Hebe. I hope the situation resolves soon, for you.

    Mt Eden, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 3136 posts Report

  • Ken Sparks, in reply to Jackie Clark,

    +1
    There is no reasonable excuse that I can think of for delaying diagnosis and treatment of an injury that is in all likelihood getting worse. The ACC should urgently address this matter but I suspect it's not on their to do list...

    Cox’s Creek • Since Apr 2011 • 60 posts Report

  • Sacha, in reply to Ken Sparks,

    The ACC should urgently address this matter but I suspect it's not on their to do list...

    they're doing exactly what their Minister intended. I'd address any questions there.

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report

  • Rob Stowell,

    Sounds dreadful, Hebe. Hope you get resolution fast. Living with pain is horrible- and sometimes only marginally less horrible when it's not you, but someone you love.

    Whakaraupo • Since Nov 2006 • 2120 posts Report

  • Kumara Republic, in reply to Sacha,

    It's what happens when ACC is invaded by F.I.R.E. suits. And when that happens, it gets tagged with the worst of both worlds - 'bureaucracy gone mad' and 'bankster greed'.

    Is there a deliberate strategy to sabotage ACC as an excuse to privatise it in the long run? And if so, how would those who stand to gain from it feel if they got unbundled or Shermanned by a change of Govt?

    The southernmost capital … • Since Nov 2006 • 5446 posts Report

  • Sacha, in reply to Kumara Republic,

    you'll notice the insurance industry were not keen on pursuing ACC privatisation in the last couple of years despite the government's wooing and preparing of the organisation for a more commercial future.

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report

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