Public servants want building closed

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32542, 27 February 1971, Page 15

Public servants want building closed

The Canterburybranch of the Public Service Association will request the City Council and the Christchurch Metropolitan Fire Board to have the Manchester Unity multi-storey office block closed until fire warning devices are installed.

The chairman of the branch (Mr J. O. Trevor) said that the building was a fire danger, and that the branch had asked the State Services Commission and the New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation to provide alternative accommodation for staff who worked in the building.

Mr Trevor said that no fire drills or evacuation exercises had taken place and that doors in the building did not comply with the legal definition of “smoke-proof doors.” After a recent minor fire the building was found to have complied with all the existing requirements of the City Council’s building code

r when it was erected. How- , ever, the building no longer [ meets the regulations because it had no fire-indicator sysI tem. i “A central fire-warning i system must be installed. The , building’s fire-safety equip- ’ ment must be brought up to ! existing standards,” Mr Tre- . vor said. “A temporary fire-warning device would suffice, provided that the necessary permanent system is to be installed, and the building brought up to required standards.”