CCDU 100 Day Blueprint

The 30 July 100 Day Blueprint announcement for Christchurch is the single most significant sign of progress this city has seen since September 4 2010.

The eagerly anticipated plan can only be described as visionary, bold, dynamic and overall extremely exciting and encouraging for our businesses and the wider community.

It provides confidence, certainty and direction for the city, our businesses and local, national and international investors. The announcement of the anchor projects and their location, provides strong and encouraging signals for the attraction and retention of investment and human capital.

The plan facilitates a new form of economic geography for the CBD and promises to deliver exciting new clusters of activity with the aim of lifting productivity and reinstating business scale and supply chain efficiencies. This will result in a smarter and more productive world class central city.

We are also pleased to see the city’s strong natural attributes being incorporated into a vibrant, distinctive and globally relevant city that will deliver economic, social and cultural benefits to Christchurch, Canterbury and New Zealand as the country’s second largest city.

CECC is supporting and endorsing the plan. Now is the critical time to move from a city transitioning from disaster to recovery and an opportunity for participation from the whole community to turn this from a plan to a reality. 

The next steps involve the execution of the plan and we look forward to playing an active part through CECC to assist Local and Central Government to do that.

http://www.cecc.org.nz/

A tribute to July 30!

Apologies to Petula Clark  “Downtown”

A tribute to July 30

When you're at home and feeling quite roamy

You can’t always go, downtown

When you’ve got worries, all the noise and the worry

Will not help I know, downtown

Just listen to the rumble of the nibblers in the city

Linger on the sidewalk

It's not looking very pretty

What will you choose?

The lights are much darker there

You’ll remember your troubles

You’ll remember your fears, so no

Downtown, but things will be great when we’ve

Rebuilt, no finer place for sure

Downtown, the futures waiting for you

Don’t hang around and let your problems surround you

There are moves afoot, downtown,

On July Thirty the future we will all court, downtown

Just listen to the words of  leading politicians

Hear what they will to reverse the bad attrition

Happy again

The lights will be brighter there

You’ll forget all your troubles

Forget all you tears, so go

Downtown, where all the plans are bright

Downtown waiting for you alright

Downtown , its going to be alright now.

Downtown

Downtown

Downtown

Downtown

And you will find a some people kind

From the CCDU

Who have a brilliant plan in mind

A gentle hand, to guide you along

So maybe I’ll see you there

We can forget all our troubles

And give a big cheer and go

Downtown

Things will be great when we’re downtown

Don't wait a minute more

Downtown everything’s waiting for you.

 

ANON

www.cecc.org.nz

New beginnings, new life.

We are heading into a busy period at CECC which very much revolves around spring, new beginnings and new life. The well publicised work being done by the Christchurch Central Development Unit  is to be announced in late July. The eagerly awaited Blueprint, outlining the future construct of our Central City has the potential to re-energise wider Christchurch. It has been described by Warwick Isaacs, Director of CCDU, as being brave and visionary. We are hoping for a radical plan that will  take the city somewhere new. CECC will be closely involved in encouraging Central City redevelopment. New beginnings going in to spring which has always been about restarting and new growth!

Then in September we celebrate business success with the Champion Canterbury Awards. There are around 200 finalists with the winners being announced at a black tie dinner on September 27.  The awards are about celebrating new business activity and the valuable contribution made by business to this community.

Exciting and positive times ahead, which we should all be actively engaging in!

www.cecc.org.nz

Measurable signs of economic activity gathering momentum

We  are seeing some measurable signs of economic activity gathering momentum in Christchurch. Canterbury’s spending out paced the rest of New Zealand from June 2011 to June 2012 with a 6.8% increase, compared to the national average of 5.1%

It has grown off a relatively low post earthquake base but the rate of spend is impressive and we expect it to continue.

We are also seeing a big increase in Canterbury based job listings on TradeMe with a phenomenal 49% increase in listings year on year. The pace of housing repairs continues to gather momentum and the very visible work on City streets, repairing and replacing infrastructure is quite obvious. Of course there are still frustrations with housing rebuilds and  houses requiring major repairs, but remember we are just at the beginning of the recovery phase so these economic indicators are going to continue to increase.

We should also be excited by the pending announcement from CCDU due out in lateJuly. CERA have been preparing a Recovery Plan for the Central City. The blueprint team lead by BoffMiskell and the CCDU unit have had 100 days to build on the CCC's work and this plan has the potential to re-energise the city. In harmony with this announcement, we are hoping to identify companies who will make a commitment to return to the Central City. The commitment to returning is more important that the timing of the return. If you are committed to go back into the Central City please let me know via email at petert@cecc.org.nz. This is a critical moment in the regions rebuild and there will be a huge media interest. We want momentum to be seen to be building and are working on ideas to profile companies committed to being part of the Central City rebuild.

http://www.cecc.org.nz/



Thanks for putting on a good show Akaroa!

Over the past weekend I entertained some guests from South Africa. As part of their visit I took them out to Akaroa to show them some of the beauty of our part of the world.

One of them was a long distance cyclist who was very  keen on learning more about Le Race.

We  enjoyed a very nice lunch in Akaroa and a visit the Gallery Rue Lavard, owned by an ex employee of the Chamber. We also had a good look around the retail offering which is interesting and varied. 

Sometimes it take visitors to remind us what we a have at our back door. We should celebrate the beauty and diversity of what we have on offer locally, much more often. Thanks for putting on a good show Akaroa.

http://www.cecc.org.nz/



Disaster recovery speech

I have been addressing a lot of audiences lately. Unsurprisingly the subject is usually around Earthquake issues and, more recently, Earthquake recovery. I do not have written notes when delivering my speeches. I have, however, been frequently asked for a copy of a speech and so last week when addressing an EMAN seminar on disaster recovery I recorded the presentation. I have attached a typed up copy of that recording for those interested. Have a good read!

 

DISASTER RECOVERY IN CHRISTCHURCH

A speech given to EMAN members in Auckland – June 2012

By Peter Townsend

I don’t do damaged buildings, we are over that.

I am going to talk about the size of the earthquakes and some of the issues we are facing, the Government’s role and then some key learning’s.

It is the key learning’s that I want you to take away this morning because there are some critical issues we faced in Christchurch that are fundamentally important in disaster management and disaster recovery.

I just want to remind you, particularly as most of you are aware, of what went on in Christchurch but it is very hard for people to get their heads around the magnitude of the disaster. There were 1,360 commercial buildings inside our four avenues destroyed. Most recently in the December 23 aftershock, a four year old 12 storey building - the IRD Building in the city the lift well dropped a meter and the building was destroyed, so this is carrying on. We are about two thirds of the way through demolishing those 1,360 buildings.  In addition to those commercial buildings inside the four avenues, 300 commercial buildings outside the four avenues, 15,000 houses destroyed, 40,000 houses with in excess of $100,000 worth of damage, 300,000 claims against EQC because of the multiple issues, 10,500 aftershocks, and 30 of them very significant.  Just to give you an idea of the momentum of building in the recovery, Fletcher Building who have the contract for EQC to repair houses that have been damaged between $10,000 - $100,000 are currently completing 100 homes a day in Christchurch and they are about 15% of the way through the repairs. Just so we can think about where we are going and what we are doing, it will be five years probably before we get our housing stock sorted out and probably 20 – 25 years before we get the commercial part of the city rebuilt and I would say recreated because we are in a situation in downtown Christchurch inside our four avenues, in the core of the CBD where 80% of the commercial buildings have been destroyed. It is about re-creation and it is about long timeframes but I do need to make the point right up front that we don’t as a country and a city stand-a-side while Christchurch is rebuilt, this is a fantastic opportunity for all of us to re-engage and to be part of the rebuild no matter where we are or where we are from............

To read the full speech please click here.

www.cecc.org.nz

Supporting Migrant Staff & their Employers

CECC is actively involved in issues around immigration and settlement support to assist to build capacity post Earthquake

• Projections to 2015 are that at least 12,000 workers from offshore will be required to fill the labour shortages in the trades and construction sectors – this is after exhausting regional and national labour sources
• Whether or not this figure is achievable is unclear, however, it is clear that we will require significant offshore resource to assist with the recovery
• The demographics of the Canterbury workplace are changing, and changing fast. Some savvy companies are actively recruiting offshore and bringing workers in now by the hundreds. Employers will need to develop new skills to manage people across different cultures. These skills may never before have been used by some employers.
• Resources are now available from CECC/Settlement Support to help employers assist newcommers to New Zealand to settle and work in Christchurch.
• To develop new resources that are specific to the Canterbury rebuild, we need to find out what employers need so they can better manage and understand their migrant workforce.

Please take five minutes of your time to help us understand what may be helpful to your business by filling out the survey below.

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