Options on Christchurch Cathedral – little support of restoration

Tuesday, April 9th, 2013

Three designs for the Christchurch’s Anglican cathedral were released last week as part of a call for public feedback before Anglican leaders decide the future of the cathedral next month.

The restoration of the existing building would cost between $104 million and $221m, A new gothic building constructed with modern materials would cost between $85 and $181m, while the modern style building would cost between $56m and $74m.

A scientific survey of 350 of their readers, commissioned by Christchurch’s newspaper, The Press, has found the majority of Canterbury residents do not want to spend public money saving the building or running the temporary cardboard cathedral.

The survey was split with 54 per cent favouring demolition and 42 per cent calling for it to be saved.

A Press online poll has attracted nearly 12,000 votes, making it the most popular poll published on the website. The vote was evenly split between the three options on the first day of polling, but the contemporary option edged ahead on Friday. The contemporary option has won just under 40 per cent support, or about 4700 votes. Restoration has attracted about 29 per cent of votes and the traditional design has won about 27 per cent. Five per cent of the voters wanted something else, rather than the three schemes presented. At time of press, 11,984 people had voted in the poll.

A Campbell Live Poll on 4 April showed that 49% of those who voted favoured the “contemporary” option, with the remaining 50% being equally divided between the other two

A One News Poll on 6 April showed that 58% favoured the contemporary options, while 295 wanted the original build restored

Bishop Victoria Matthews says the future of Christ Church Cathedral will not be decided by a “public vote” but the people’s opinion could be “very persuasive” if one of the designs gets overwhelming support.

“If it is overwhelming that would be very persuasive but not the deciding vote. We are not voting in a design but we are listening to what the public have to say.” said Matthews

She would not reveal her preferred option.

The Anglican Diocese of Christchurch has set up a website seeking feedback from the public about those three choices.

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