Demolition rate to ramp up next month

DEAN KOZANIC/FAIRFAX NZ

CLEARING THE WAY: About half of the homes in the red-zoned suburb of Bexley in east Christchurch have been demolished. The homes that remain are cracked, warped and filled with silt.

Demolition of the residential red zone needs to accelerate so all homes on the flat land can be cleared by the end-of-year target.

The Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority (Cera) has missed its demolition targets, but promises that the pace of clearance will accelerate next month.

New clearance data provided by Cera shows that more than half of the red-zoned houses have been demolished.

Figures up to March 4 show that 3920 homes have been demolished, with 3919 to go.

In October last year, Cera hoped to be demolishing 400 homes a month by the end of 2013. In November last year, 295 homes were demolished and 182 were demolished in December.

Cera still hopes to meet the target of 5000 homes demolished on flat land by June, with the remainder of flat-land homes demolished by the end of the year.

Port Hills clearance will take until the end of 2015 at the earliest.

Cera operations general manager John Cumberpatch said it needed to demolish 300 homes a month to clear flat-land homes by the end of the year.

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Demolition rate to ramp up next month