Wairarapa Council Staffers Back On The Job

Wednesday, 29 April 2020, 4:44 pm
Article: Marcus Anselm - Local Democracy Reporter

Wairarapa council staffers have returned to a busy backlog of work with the introduction of covid-18 alert level 3.

Building inspectors at Masterton District Council [MDC] were back on the job this week, and have up to eight checks every day as construction restarts in New Zealand.

MDC’s Alastair McDonald is one of three in the district’s Building Services team.

He said the roster was at half capacity initially, as they only have three vehicles and they would need to be cleaned if all six team members were using them.

McDonald said contact with tradesmen was kept to a minimum as they aimed to ensure social distancing.

“We can actually do the inspections without anybody there, as long as the plans are available.

“Most of the sites I’ve been to have been pretty good with the social distancing - I think everybody is aware of what is required.”

McDonald said the general mood of tradesmen had been very positive.

“I’ve talked to a few people, and they’re happy to be out working in the sun, glad to be back on the tools.

“There’s been a bit of talk of having to lose a few kilos after the lockdown.”

“I did talk to one bricklayer who said they’re chocka for the next six months – after that, it will be interesting to see what happens in the industry.”

Under Alert Level 3, inspections are limited to unoccupied buildings, with gloves and masks available to staff.

“Last week when the move to Alert Level 3 was confirmed, I rang all the people who had had inspections postponed because of the lockdown to give them the first opportunity for an inspection.”

While there was no work going at building sites during the lockdown, things certainly didn’t grind to a halt for the Building Services team.

Working from home, the team were processing consent applications and answering enquiries.

“This week we also started to get a lot more queries from real estate agents looking for property reports.”

For Alastair, the move into lockdown came the day after two weeks of voluntary isolation, following a holiday in Thailand.

“So it’s been quite a long seven weeks!”

Building Services Team Leader Steven Williams said it was important council work continued to ensure building work could be re-started as soon as possible.

“We want to be doing everything we can to get the local industry moving again,” he said.

“We’re working through any postponed inspections as soon as we can and the consents that have been processed during lockdown will lead to further work starting.”

© Scoop Media

Local Democracy Reporting

Content from the Local Democracy Reporting (LDR) service is published by Scoop as a registered New Zealand Media Outlet LDR Partner.