Dangerous wiring sparks need for upgrade of New Zealand's oldest union church

New Zealand's oldest union church is in need of an electrical upgrade to protect the historic building from fire.

St Patrick's Union Church has sat on its original site in the small township of Burkes Pass in the Mackenzie district since 1872 and is listed as a Category 1 historic place by Heritage New Zealand.

The Mackenzie District Council received an application for a heritage grant from the Burkes Pass Heritage Trust following electrical concerns, at a meeting last week where councillors decided if and how much to fund repairs.

The decision report said the Trust found power was not sufficiently flowing from the church, with only 140v of the 240v coming through, alongside flickering lights, damage and unregulated switches.

"The lights flickered indicating a damaged external wire ... no neutral wire functioning and the earth was being used as a default, the arrangement of breaker switches inside was not up to regulation standards and that the whole thing was a significant fire risk," the report said.

Because the church was an aged wooden structure, the mains were turned off and Alpine Energy was engaged to put in temporary ground wiring.

The application sought $4426.43 to replace the electricity supply cable, move it underground, and replace the switchboard in the church to meet current regulations.

The Trust said $3426.43 would go towards new mains, inspections and trenching, while the remainder would cover the new switchboard and interior work.

Councillors discussed heritage grant guidelines where each application would only be eligible for a maximum grant of $2500 or a percentage sum based on the category of the heritage site.

Heritage sites, buildings and structures were allocated up to 75% of the requested funding amount and notable trees, archaeological and Waahi Tapu sites were allocated up to 50% of the requested funding.

Murray Dickson told councillors the heritage reserve balance was sitting at $9464.77 as of July 1, with an additional $5000 to be allocated.

Meanwhile, Jan Spriggs was in support of funding the full requested amount, noting the district did not have many historic buildings.

But other councillors disagreed, with Brian Finn highlighting that the grant guidelines had only been adopted in March.

"It just seems a bit strange to me that we would exceed those straight away… we don't really know what other applications we might have through the year," Finn said.

"We also want to signal, given the financial situation we're in, that we can't be the sole source of funding for all of the organizational needs in the district."

Councillor Phillipa Guerin agreed.

Councillors approved the recommendations and the funding grant at the maximum $2500 plus GST of the requested $4426.