Christmas dressings to cost $50,000?

Press, 28 July 1987, Page 9

Christmas dressings to cost $50,000?

A budget of $50,000 will be spent on dressing Christchurch City for Christmas if the Christchurch City Council follows its public utilities committee’s recommendation.

The $50,000 budget proposed by the committee includes four banners across streets at Cathedral Square ($5000), 64 decorations ($26,500), a Christmas tree base for the City Mall ($2700), an award for the best decorated building ($300), lights for two Christmas trees, and floodlighting for one ($6200), entertainment ($3000) and $6300 is reserved for contingencies.

The budget allows for decorations on every pole

in Colombo Street between Moorhouse Avenue and Kilmore Street.

The decoration prototype has been hanging in Victoria Square for the last few months as a test of its durability. The council’s parKs department will provide two trees for decoration.

Parking extension

The construction of the Lichfield Street parking building extension is about months behind schedule. The hand-over date for the top deck of the building is now August, 1988, 7*4 months later than the original specified completion date.

Reasons for delays given to members of the

public utilities committee yesterday included foundation problems, industrial disputes, and extra work. These accounted for three months of the delay. The other 414 months reflected how far behind the original schedule the contractor was.

Decks 2A and 4A have been completed, and the formwork and pre-stress-ing cable placement for 6A is almost finished.

Councillors were told the delay would affect projected revenue. The loss of spaces in the present building would be much higher than thought. It was hoped that any shortfall in revenue would be offset by penalty payments.