National Headquarters
Fire and Emergency New Zealand
National Headquarters
Spark Central, Level 7
42-52 Wil is Street
Wel ington Central
Wel ington 6011
Phone +64 4 496 3600
16 February 2026
Ref: 20570
Brianna Anglesey
[FYI request #33543 email]
Tēnā koe Brianna
We refer to your request of 18 January 2026 to Fire and Emergency New Zealand requesting
information relating to the Karikari Volunteer Fire Station. Your request has been considered
under the Official Information Act 1982 (OIA), and we copy and respond to your questions below.
1. Whether a rebuild of the Karikari Volunteer Fire Station has been approved, planned, or is
currently under active consideration. If so, please provide:
a. The approved or estimated total budget for the rebuild.
b. Any available breakdown of costs (including construction, design, project management,
consultants, land acquisition if applicable, and other major categories).
The Karikari Fire Station rebuild project was approved through a business case dated 18 March
2025 and is now under construction. The total project cost is $2.3M. Please see the table below
showing a breakdown of costs:
Budget Item
Confirmed Budget
Construction
$1,500,146
Professional Fees and Consents
$262,245
Furniture, Fixtures & Equipment
$45,000
Project Management Costs
$75,007
Project Contingency (15%)
$282,360
Total Capital Cost
$2,164,758
Relocation Costs
$100,000
Make Good / Demolition
$50,000
Total Project Cost
$2,314,758
c. The intended source(s) of funding for the rebuild, including whether Fire and Emergency
levy funding wil be used, and to what extent.
The project is being funded through Fire and Emergency’s National Property Capital Programme.
Fire and Emergency does not record the distribution of levy in a way that can answer your
question. Revenue is col ected from various sources, including insurance levy and combined to
form our operating budget. We do not record which proportion of each expenditure is made up of
levy vs other revenue sources.
d. The anticipated timeline for the project.
Practical completion of the project is anticipated by 30 June 2026.
2. The number of incidents and callouts attended by the Karikari Volunteer Fire Station for
each of the last five calendar years.
We have interpreted this part of your request to be asking for incident data for the last five full
calendar years. The incident data is publicly available on our website and can be accessed
here.
For this reason, we are refusing this part of your request under section 18(d) of the OIA, that the
information requested is publicly available. You will need to download the incident data file and
filter by station name.
3. Copies of any business cases, cost–benefit analyses, or internal briefing documents used to
justify or prioritise this rebuild.
Please find attached, as
Appendix One to this response, a copy of the approved business case for
the project. Please note, the final project cost provided above differs from the budget approved in
the business case.
4. Any documents showing how this project was prioritised relative to other station upgrades,
rebuilds, or major maintenance projects nationwide.
The attached business case explains the rationale for major capital investment prioritisation. Page
13 explains the specific reasons for investment.
Thank you for your email of 4 February 2026 refining question 5 of your original request to now
ask for:
5. For the last three years, please provide any existing national-level summary documents (if
held) that identify fire stations with significant building defects or health and safety risks
(including mould, asbestos, or water damage). This could include any asset condition
registers, facilities/maintenance risk registers, prioritisation matrices, dashboards, or
similar summaries. In addition, please provide any reports or internal assessments relating
specifically to the Karikari Fire Station over the last three years.
While information regarding significant building defects or health and safety risks does exist in
relation to individual fire stations, Fire and Emergency does not hold national level summary
documents that identify buildings with significant building defects or health and safety risks.
As noted in our email of 2 February, to identify all relevant reports and internal assessments
regarding defects or health and safety risks over three years for all stations would require
significant resource, and we consider it would have an unreasonable impact on our normal
operations. For this reason, we are refusing a portion of your request under section 18(f) of the
OIA, as the information requested cannot be made available without substantial collation and
research. In accordance with the OIA, we have considered whether affixing a charge or extending
the timeframe would enable us to answer your request in ful . However, given the scale and
nature of your request, we do not consider that either option would be appropriate or sufficient to
provide the information sought.
However, as the rest of your request relates specifically to the Karikari Volunteer Fire Station we
have decided to provide information regarding defects and health and safety risks for Karikari
volunteer fire station.
Please find attached, as
Appendix Two to this response, copies of reports and assessments
relating to building defects or health and safety risk at the Karikari Volunteer fire Station in the last
three years. Some information has been withheld under section 9(2)(a) of the OIA, to protect the
privacy of natural persons. In making this decision, we have considered the public interest
considerations in section 9(1) of the OIA.
You have the right to seek an investigation and review by the Ombudsman of this decision.
Information about how to make a complaint is available
at www.ombudsman.parliament.nz or
freephone 0800 802 602.
We trust that the information being provided is of assistance. If you require further information,
please email [FENZ request email]
Please note that because of the identified public interest in the information that you have
requested, we intend to publish this response (with your personal details removed) on our
website.
Nāku noa, nā
Aidan Saunders
Manager, Information Requests
