Council tried to dose building

Press, 25 August 1986, Page 1

Council tried to dose building

By

LEE MATTHEWS

The Buller Unemployment Centre was a potential firetrap and the Westport Borough Council had tried to close it before Friday’s fatal fire, said the Mayor of Westport, Mr Pat O’Dea. Illegal alterations, timber treated with oil, no fire-proofing materials, and illegal drainage, plumbing, and wiring were found by council staff during an inspection. The building was considered a fire and structural risk.

The council sought a court order to close the building last Tuesday, but Judge Fogarty held the matter over to September 16, Westport’s next court day, Mr O’Dea said centre members had continually rebuffed the council’s attempts to work with them, and had ignpred stopwork notices posted over alterations being done without permits. “The fire should not have happened, but it has, and now these people are

criticising the council,” said Mr O’Dea. The members had claimed that the council was picking on them, but the council had been trying to make them comply with regulations.

A nasty feeling had surrounded the centre before the fire.. Mr O’Dea said some Westport people were unhappy about “undesirable types” who had ■drifted into the Centre from outside the district over the last year.

When the centre started, its ideals to help

the unemployed were accepted by most people as “a good thing,” he said. “But there has been a drift away from those ideals as outsiders came in.” Mr O’Dea described some of these outsiders as unemployable. “These people are antisocial. They have a chip on their shoulders,” he said. They felt that society owed them a living and were not prepared to work. Such “unemployables” had made people angry

and had turned them against the centre. “I don’t think anyone in Westport would wish a fire like that on anybody,” Mr O’Dea said. “But people are fed up with people at the centre breaking by-laws and building without permits.” Genuinely unemployed people who were looking for work were still helped and supported by most of the town, as Westport and the West Coast was no stranger to unemployment, he said.

The council had also been concerned that the centre was being used as an overnight doss-house by unemployed people. Centre members had denied that people were sleeping overnight in the building, said Mr O’Dea. But it was rumoured that as many as 20 people slept there on some nights.

Mr O’Dea said crime had increased in Westport since the centre opened. The police had stated their concern about the increase 18 months ago.