Queenstown Lakes District Council has retained its accreditation as a Building Consent Authority following a successful assessment by International Accreditation New Zealand (IANZ), completed 10-13 October 2017. The assessment showed a significant improvement in all areas of the business when compared to previous assessments.

QLDC Councillor and Planning & Strategy Committee Chair Tony Hill said he was delighted with the report. “This is a significant turnaround from the BCA assessment completed in April 2016 which resulted in a number of corrective actions, and the improvements are due very much to the hard work of the QLDC Building Services team.”

“The accreditation recognises that we have appointed more staff, including a Quality Assurance Manager, to meet the needs of a rapidly growing district and complete the tasks required under the BCA Regulations,” said Mr Hill.

The report also acknowledged how well the BCA was prepared for the assessment and actively worked to ensure all outstanding items had been addressed.

On hearing the details of the report, QLDC Mayor Jim Boult said, “It is great that the team have been able to make such a positive transformation to the business and I would like to congratulation them for all their hard work.  We knew that we needed to make major changes to the way our BCA was operating, and to make those changes in a way that would be enduring and give us confidence about the quality of build that they were signing off on.”

The assessment report identified six areas of general non-compliance and all recommendations and advisory notes were confirmed as not conditional for accreditation. IANZ also recorded its level of concern with the BCA as “low”. The next assessment is recommended for October 2019.

ENDS

For further information contact:

Tony Avery, QLDC General Manager Planning & Development

M: 027 498 2473