Deadline for hotel

Press, 29 March 1980, Page 6

Deadline for hotel

The deadline for the improvement of fire safety at the United Service Hotel in Cathedral Square has not been met. The: Licensing Control Commission’s decision on September 25 of last year, gave the lessee, Idris Freeholds, Ltd, six months to bring the hotel up to the fire code. If the necessary work was pot completed, the owner of the 95-year-old hotel, Central City Estates, Ltd, would Slave to show cause why its ieence should not be cancelled or suspended, said the commission.

The six-month ultimatum expired this week. Mr D. McFarlane, the managing director of Idris Freeholds and a director of Central City Estates, could not be reached for comment. However, Mr McFarlane’s solicitor (Mr J. N. Matson) confirmed that the work had not been completed. Instead, he . said, the lessee had approached the commission before Christmas with a new

proposal of work “which might meet the requirements of the commission.” The commission had replied early this year that the proposal had been handed to the Fire Service for its comment, said Mr Matson.

Nothing more had been heard about the proposal. Under the terms of its September decision, ' the commission had required that the fire safety work on the hotel be "placed in hand” within three months, and completed in six months.

Idris Freeholds had previously asked for an exemption to the requirement that a $130,000 sprinkler system be installed in the hotel. The company had argued that because the United Service was due for demolition in 1989, there would not be sufficient time to write off the cost. Mr Matson said this week that the proposal had been sent to the commission within ; the initial three months of its ultimatum.

The cbst would be less than the estimated cost of the sprinkler system, he said. Under the proposals, Mr Matson said that inside walls of the hotel would be strengthened and fire doors installed in certain parts.

“It would make it such that if a fire did start in. one place it would delay it spreading to another place for some hours.” he said. “The ball is now in the commission’s court. I think we could legitimately complain if they now said 'yOur six months are up,’ because they didn’t reply,” he said.

The Fire Service's director Of fire safety (Mr P. K. Bur-ton-Wood) said from Wellington a new proposal on the United Service had been referred for comment from the commission. They were general and contained no detailed plans or specifications, he said. Mr Burton-WoOd would not comment on the proposals or say what the next step would be.