Engineer already deregistered

Tony Major
Tony Major
Disgraced Stadium Southland designer Tony Major, who has been expelled from the Institution of Professional Engineers (Ipenz) this week for incompetency, had already been deregistered as a professional engineer.

New Zealand's register of chartered professional engineers is administered by Ipenz. To remain on it, engineers must undertake a competency assessment every five years.

Mr Major failed his assessment in 2010 and his name was removed from the register in December that year, Ipenz chief executive Andrew Cleland said yesterday.

Despite that, the Invercargill-based design engineer was still able to work.

Representatives from the Invercargill City Council and the Southland District Council said yesterday they were informed when Mr Major had been removed from the register, but had accepted building consent applications from him since with the proviso the engineering components of each project were peer reviewed and signed off by a registered chartered professional engineer.

The cost of the reviews and checks was met by Mr Major or his clients, not the councils.

Mr Major was expelled from Ipenz after a disciplinary committee found his original work on the stadium, which collapsed in a snowstorm in September 2010, was below par.

The committee criticised his ''casual attitude to his professional engineering activities'' at the time the stadium was built and said his ''attitude and competencies remain below the current standards for a professional member''.

Mr Major was a prolific designer over many years of projects from driveways, drains and building extensions to houses, farm buildings, commercial buildings and public spaces, district council building control manager Kevin O'Connor and city council building regulation services manager Simon Tonkin said yesterday.

He had done a lot of work in the city and Southland as well as further afield, particularly in Queenstown.

On Tuesday, Dr Cleland advised anyone who had had a building designed by Mr Major to have it checked if they were concerned about its structural integrity.

Mr Tonkin and Mr O'Connor agreed, saying it was up to property owners to have the work checked, although their councils would become involved if property owners believed a building was at imminent risk of failure or was dangerous.

City council chief executive Richard King said the council was concerned about the implications for buildings Mr Major had designed in the city, and had gone to Ipenz for advice about what property owners should do.

''Once we receive more information from Ipenz, we will be communicating further with the community,'' he said.

Mr King said he had asked Mr Tonkin to search property records to try to identify all projects Mr Major had been involved with, and to contact Mr Major and builders to ask for the addresses of buildings Mr Major had worked on.allison.beckham@odt.co.nz

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