Church repair bill goes a bit higher
The cost to earthquake strengthen Timaru’s St Mary’s Church has increased by $20,000 and the work has been extended by eight weeks after it was discovered the building’s steel supports needed to be replaced.
The 136-year-old church has been undergoing earthquake repairs for almost a decade, and its tower has been encased in scaffolding for almost two years as strengthening work took place on the 32-metre tower.
However, the church’s vicar warden Murray Gibson said yesterday the steel supports, in the tower and not included in the initial project timeline, also needed to be replaced, which happened this week.
After starting the project of replacing the church’s four pinnacles, which were ordered to be removed after one moved during the 2010 earthquake, they found the old reinforcements also needed to be replaced, he said.
‘‘The steel has been weathered too much for new pinnacles to go on top.’’
This has added another eight weeks to the project and $20,000 to the bill, at a time when money is becoming tight for the congregation, meaning another way needed to be found to pay for the project costs.
‘‘We’ve just about exhausted our reserves. We have to pay quite a large excess,’’ Gibson said.
Not being a large congregation, it meant the church would need to look at other ways of raising money, he said.
‘‘We’ve got some ideas but nothing concrete.’’
While the project had taken ‘‘a long time’’, Gibson said he was excited for the church to be complete, which he believes will be next April.
‘‘It’s going to be magnificent. They [the pinnacles] are going to be as good if not better than before.’’
The pinnacles were made by J Tait Stonemasonry Contractors in Christchurch and the construction and strengthening was completed by South Canterbury companies.
Gibson said he was ‘‘delighted that local people were doing the construction’’ and Timaru Construction had done the job.
He said the replacement of the pinnacles, weighing two tonnes and 2m high, was ‘‘seven to eight years in the making’’ when things such as acquiring resource consents and the carving of the pinnacles, were taken into consideration.