Roger Sutton- A city with attitude | Canterbury Opinion | Local Voices from Canterbury, New Zealand

Lately, I've been talking a lot about numbers.  

By the time you read this, at least 40,000 people will have used the Cathedral Square walkway. Perhaps you're one of the 30,000 people who booked a CBD red zone bus visit. You might be one of more than 20,000 people who held a CBD red zone pass in the last 10 months. You could have been the 1000th person to complete a temporary access plan to enter a building in the CBD.  

You'll have had a chance to join me in reflecting on the many empty sites in the CBD and to try to make sense of what this means to you personally, and for our city. Those numbers confirm we've got attitude in this city - in the tens of thousands.  

At CERA we're often asked for the number of partial or full demolitions, and we provide regular updates on our website. At the end of November, city-wide, 645 buildings had been demolished and 200 partially demolished. Sixty-nine per cent of those were in the CBD.  

These numbers equal loss, and for many, grief. But they are also a step towards recovery.  

The completion of demolition or partial demolition of 845 buildings a month before Christmas means we have achieved something incredibly important - a much safer city. The majority of those buildings were dangerous while the balance was uneconomic to repair. The danger presented to our city by these buildings has been removed. That is a milestone on the road to recovery.   Recovery needs a collective attitude of what we can do, not what we can't.  

The success of ReStart in Cashel Mall shows the right attitude can really take us places. CERA welcomes opportunities to work with the private sector, and to continue to meet with CBD business representatives to discuss potential future projects.  

As we open up more of our city, the complex restoration of roads, power, telecommunications, and water services to previously closed areas is well in hand. It is vital work showing the commitment and partnership that is critical in keeping the city moving forward.  

We also need owners whose buildings are damaged but are not dangerous to step up and make decisions about the future of their buildings. There is no point in CERA reducing the CBD cordon, only to have another fence put up so that work can be done on an owner's building. Ultimately this could delay the city's economic recovery.  

In coming months, all the city's commercial building owners will be asked to submit detailed engineering evaluations to CERA as part of making sure their buildings are structurally sound. This will help rebuild public confidence in the safety of their buildings. They will also need to work with the city council to make sure their building reaches the level of strength required by the New Building Standard for both tenants and the public to use.  

View a timeline of the CBD cordons from February to now at www.cera.govt.nz/maps   

Roger Sutton is chief executive of Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority. If you want to comment on his editorial email star.reporters@starcanterbury.co.nz