$30 million urgent funding needed for cathedral

Christ Church Cathedral Reinstatement Limited (CCRL) has four months to find the project a new funding pathway, or it will be “mothballed” indefinitely.

Chair of CCRL Mark Stewart announced, early in April, that the group has until August this year to secure a funding pathway to reinstate the iconic cathedral, largely destroyed in the 2011 earthquake. If funding is unsuccessful, the rebuild will stop for an unspecified period.

“This is an incredibly challenging position to be in, particularly when we are more than a third of the way through the entire reinstatement,” says Mark. The decision follows a comprehensive review of the costs and timeline of the reinstatement programme. March last year was the first time full access to the inside of the Cathedral was granted since the earthquakes.

The review showed that continuing the original project work plan would be too expensive and present too much risk. Following the review team, the CCRL Board decided to reduce the scope, cost, and risk of the project by removing the deep foundation for the tower and the lower courtyard, thus mitigating that risk.

“By doing this, the overall cost of the project is now $248 million,” says Mark. “We are confident we can raise a further $26 million, on top of the $24 million raised so far. The Bishop has committed to securing additional contributions from the Anglican Church of $16 million, leaving a funding gap of $114 million.

“Our urgent need is a funding stream of $30 million that we can access by September 2024 so we can continue the strengthening. We then need further funding to allow us to complete the reinstatement by October 2031. We are managing our remaining funds carefully in the meantime to maintain operations,” he explains.

The government has been briefed, and discussion initiated with the Christchurch City Council about funding options. Christchurch Mayor Phil Mauger says resolving the funding problem will take the combined efforts of the charitable company, the church, the city and central government. “Many of our residents, businesses and visitors will see the cathedral as the final piece of the rebuild.

But we must acknowledge that the financial pressure all of these groups are under at the moment will make this challenging,” says Phil. “While the Cathedral is a place of worship for the Anglican Church, it is also an important civic and heritage building and a well-used community space. We recently commissioned New Zealand Institute of Economic Research (NZIER) to estimate the total economic value of reinstating Christ Church Cathedral. They estimated that the reinstated cathedral could result in additional tourism spending of up to $20.8 million per year,” adds Mark.