Nor'West News: July 31, 2018
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NOR’WEST NEWS Latest Christchurch news at www.star.kiwi<br />
Tuesday <strong>July</strong> <strong>31</strong> <strong>2018</strong> 5<br />
Free firewood warms Shirley families<br />
Community<br />
helps mum<br />
through winter<br />
• By Georgia O’Connor-Harding<br />
BEING THE sole bread-winner<br />
in a household with three<br />
children hasn’t been an easy road<br />
for Shirley mother Rachel Curry.<br />
The oil heater she uses<br />
to warm her home burns<br />
through a “staggering” amount<br />
of electricity and recently<br />
contributed to a $700 power bill<br />
for one month. “I had the oil<br />
heater on 24/7 for a month and<br />
had no firewood and had to keep<br />
the family warm,” Miss Curry<br />
said. The previous month was<br />
between $400 and $500.<br />
But paying the bills has been<br />
made a little easier for the<br />
commercial cleaner. Her family<br />
is one of 18 in the Shirley area to<br />
receive free firewood.<br />
The firewood deliveries were<br />
part of a large community effort<br />
to help families struggling to<br />
keep their homes warm.<br />
As well as having the stress<br />
of heating her home taken<br />
away, Fire and Emergency New<br />
Zealand has undertaken a safety<br />
check of Miss Curry’s home and<br />
installed fire alarms.<br />
Said Miss Curry: “I am just<br />
grateful there are these community<br />
groups that do go out of<br />
their way and support each other<br />
. . . we have had some cold days<br />
with cold morning frosts so it<br />
has been really helpful for us,”<br />
she said.<br />
It comes as a Salvation Army<br />
survey showed almost half of its<br />
respondents said they had gone<br />
without heating because of the<br />
cost over the past year.<br />
More than 50 people and various<br />
organisations were involved<br />
in the firewood initiative, including<br />
the Department of Corrections,<br />
Te Puna Oraka, the Shirley<br />
Community Trust, city council<br />
and Fire and Emergency New<br />
Zealand.<br />
Mairehau’s Neighbourhood<br />
Trust, the Delta Community<br />
HAPPY HOME: Malachy Curry, 6, helps his mum Rachel light a fire with the free firewood<br />
delivered to Shirley families. <br />
Support Trust, Shirley Rugby<br />
Football Club, Shirley Intermediate<br />
School, C3 Church, Housing<br />
New Zealand, the Helen Anderson<br />
Trust, New Brighton Volunteer<br />
Fire Brigade, New Zealand<br />
Army and St Johns Church<br />
also contributed to helping the<br />
families.<br />
The wood was sourced by the<br />
Department of Corrections,<br />
which had old pallets to get rid<br />
of.<br />
Community activator Steve<br />
Jones-Poole, who orchestrated<br />
the firewood project, said it was a<br />
community project.<br />
He said some of the people<br />
who received firewood also<br />
helped deliver firewood to<br />
others. The community organisations<br />
selected families to<br />
donate the firewood to based on<br />
information from social service<br />
providers in the area.<br />
Mr Jones-Poole said he had<br />
heard of some families heating<br />
their homes using an oven, while<br />
others were using small heaters<br />
which could cost up to $600 a<br />
month to operate.<br />
“Of course, the bigger picture<br />
around it is you have got the<br />
heating for the homes which is<br />
good for them but the bigger<br />
thing was the people coming<br />
together,” he said.<br />
Mr Jones-Poole met with<br />
families and Te Puna Oraka<br />
yesterday to work on a long-term<br />
solution to help families in need<br />
to collect firewood over the year.<br />
CHARITY: More than<br />
50 people and several<br />
organisations helped to<br />
deliver firewood to families<br />
in Shirley.<br />
Local<br />
<strong>News</strong><br />
Now<br />
Fire rages, homes at risk<br />
High Court<br />
date set<br />
in bid<br />
to stop<br />
Belfast water<br />
consents<br />
A PRELIMINARY hearing in<br />
the High Court on October<br />
2 is set to address a water<br />
action group’s bid to stop two<br />
companies taking water from<br />
sites in Belfast then selling it<br />
overseas.<br />
Aotearoa Water Action is<br />
contesting Environment Canterbury’s<br />
decision to grant resource<br />
consents to bottling companies<br />
Cloud Ocean Water and Rapaki<br />
Natural Resources.<br />
AWA opposes an argument<br />
from the bottling companies<br />
that they did not need new consents<br />
to take the water, which<br />
could see up to 24 million litres<br />
a day removed.<br />
The consents are based on<br />
historical permits for the Silver<br />
Fern Farms works and the Kaputone<br />
Wool Scour.<br />
Said AWA spokesman Peter<br />
Richardson: “The companies<br />
say they are entitled to rely on<br />
the previous plant owners’ use<br />
consents, but those consents<br />
were for entirely different purposes<br />
– wool scouring and meat<br />
processing. We don’t think that’s<br />
right.”<br />
“ECan correctly required<br />
these companies to apply for<br />
new consents, although in our<br />
view it then processed the consents<br />
unlawfully,” he said.<br />
If AWA is successful, there<br />
will be a further hearing at a later<br />
date on whether the consents<br />
were granted legally by ECan.<br />
The Bottle Off! campaign has<br />
been created to support the legal<br />
action and an online PledgeMe<br />
campaign has raised more than<br />
$40,000.<br />
A petition with about 115,000<br />
signatures calling for the end<br />
of foreign companies selling<br />
bottled Christchurch water was<br />
handed to ECan in April.<br />
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