CITY FIRE INQUIRY

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22617, 21 April 1948, Page 6

CITY FIRE INQUIRY

WORK ON BUILDING NO PERMIT OBTAINED WALL OPENINGS MADE (P.A.) CHRISTCHURCH. April 21 Questioned before the Royal _ Commission investigating E&llantvne s fire, C. S. Lunev, principal ef a firm cf building contractors, said that if a permit had been required for ar. opening being cut between two cellars at the time of the fire it was his responsibility to obtain if. He had not, however, applied for a permit so far as an opening on the first floor was concerned. It had beer, decided in effect to risk going ahead without a permit on account of the urgency of the work. Kenneth Ballantyne. a joint managing director of Ballantync's. gave evidence that in view of the close supervision of the building that was maintained. the presence of over fiC fireextinguishers had been considered a sufficient precaution against fire. Precautions Adequate To Mr. E. A Lee. for the City Council. Ballantyne said the firm had ever 60 manual fire extinguishers and the system of looking after the building which was never vacated made that seem enough The fire risk in the building was never mentioned at a meeting of the directors as being unnatural. He did not take part in the discussions on tire installation of a sprinkler system. "The first work I did in Ballantyne's was the renovation of the women’s shoe department in 1945.” said the previous witness Lunev, to Mr T P Cleary, for Ballantynes. “Brown one of my employees, was working in the basement of Goodman's building on the day of the fire. He was making an opening into Hie basement of Pratt's building. No permit had been given for the work. 1 did not consider that the job needed a permit. I had hired a compressor from the City Council for the job and the Municipal Electricity Department had connected it to the power lines in Colombo street.” Mr. B. A Barrel’, for three trade unions: Who is responsible for obtaining permits for the type of work you were doing? Witness: The customary practice is for the contractor to lodge formally the plans and uplift the permit. “So if a permit was necessary for the job in the basement it was your responsibility to obtain it? —Yes.” It was a joint decision by himself and C. T. Lucas, architect, to make the opening on the first floor without a permit, Limey told Mr. Lee. Had a permit been sought it was not anticipated that die City' Council would have obstructed it so far as he knewIt was not proposed to erect a firedoor for the opening being made between the basements. Decided To Risk Going Ahead

Witness said he believed that the assistant city engineer, A. H. Jccks, did not know the use to which the compressor would be put when it was borrowed. He was aware of the need for a permit for an opening on the first floor, but in view of the urgency of the work it had in effect been decided to risk going ahead without a permit, said Luney to Mr. G. G. G. Watson, for the Crown. He would have applied for a permit for the opening between the cellars after the preliminary work had disclosed what was involved. He did not agree that the preliminary work came within the category of an alteration to an existing building. The whole job might have required three tons of cement. Richard Lepitit Scott, a member of a building firm, gave evidence that the verandah at Ballantyne’s had been put up in 1918 and had been authorised by the City Council. Having'’obtained a permit for one opening his firm had made in the building, he had not made plans of nor applied for one or two subsequent openings his firm had made. “We had been knocking openings in buildings for years, and it never crossed my mind that we were creating a fire hazard,” Scott said to Mr. Hutchinson, for the Fire Board. Automatic Alarm Unsatisfactory Robert Martin, retired, who was on Ballantyne’s staff for 57 years and was housemaster for many years, said that the automatic fire alarm system installed in 1919 was unsatisfactory because there were false alarms and the indicator board was inefficient. He had strongly objected to the use of an open flame for testing the system and after he had made several complaints to the late William Ballantyne, the system was dismantled in 1928. An electrician employed by the firm, Victor Stanley Appleyard, said a new AC cable as the service main was installed in 1936. From the time of Hie installation he had done no work on the service main conductors and knew of no work on them by anyone else. Cross-examined by W. R. Lascelles, for the City Council, Appleyard said that when electrical work was done by contractors he checked it. In his opinion Ballantyne’s at the time of the fire was free from an electrical hazard.