There has been a drop of more than $25 million in the total value of building projects in the Queenstown Lakes District in the past nine months compared with the same period last year.
Builders around the district have been reporting a downturn in work and that is supported by the QLDC's district analysis of building consents.
The data reveals for the year between July 1, 2008, and the end of March, 2009, there were 957 building consent applications, compared with 1004 for the same nine-month period in 2007-08.
The value of consents over the past nine months is just over $200 million, compared with just over $225 million for the same period last year.
The QLDC's annual year runs from July 1 to June 30. During the full 2007-08 year, the total value of building consents was just over $316.6 million, compared with $359.51 million in the full 2006-07 year.
The council breaks down the data further into four areas - Arrowtown, Queenstown, Wakatipu and Wanaka.
For the first nine months of this year, Wanaka received 28 fewer building consent applications compared with the previous period, with the value dropping about $12.2 million to just over $75.6 million.
Queenstown is down eight consents (dropping $6.7 million to $78.5 million) and the Wakatipu Basin is down 60 (dropping $11.1 million to $34.7 million).
In comparison, Arrowtown has received 40 more building consent applications so far this year compared with the same period last year.
The value of work in Arrowtown has increased just over $2 million to $10.5 million.
The data for March shows there were 25 fewer building applications in the district compared with March last year, when 132 applications were received.
There were 23 fewer new dwelling applications district-wide, with 48 applied for in March last year, compared with 25 this March.
Wanaka took the biggest hit of all the towns in terms of new dwelling applications, dropping from 37 in March last year to 13 this March.
But the town still got more building applications in March than the other three areas, although the value was about half that of the projects in Queenstown.
Wanaka received 49 applications in March (worth $8.6 million) and Queenstown received 28 (worth $15.7 million).
There were 15 each in Arrowtown and the Wakatipu (worth $953,336 and $3 million respectively).
• BUILDING CONSENTS
Monthly number of QLDC building consents, approx value:
Mar 2009: 107 $28.4m
Mar 2008: 130 $24.7m
Feb 2009: 90 $13.8m
Feb 2008: 58 $29.1m
Jan 2009: 88 $15.7m
Jan 2008: 100 $19m
Dec 2008: 71 $31.2m
Dec 2007: 112 $14.6m
Nov 2008: 108 $19.1m
Nov 2007: 124 $33.3m
Oct 2008: 125 $23.2m
Oct 2007: 103 $26m
Sept 2008: 109 $25.9m
Sept 2007: 97 $20.8m
Aug 2008: 134 $18m
Aug 2007: 114 $19.8m
July 2008: 125 $25.1m
July 2007: 166 $38.2m
