Three years after nearly losing its accreditation to issue building consents, the Queenstown Lakes District Council's building consents team's performance has improved out of sight, its manager says. Over two months of that year, it processed only 26% of consents within the statutory 20-day timeframe. Normally conducted every two years, a third audit was made a year later to ensure it was back on track. Mr English said it had struggled to keep up with commercial consents late last year and early this year. While he accepted there were recruitment challenges, the council needed to do more to build up its own team, he said.

Source: Otago Daily Times July 21, 2019 16:30 UTC