It seems highly unlikely that the Government will intervene to stop the demolition of ChristChurch Cathedral, despite strong opposition.
Prime Minister John Key today said he had not seen any engineering reports which supported anything but the demolition of the building, which suffered severe earthquake damage last year.
"We are not engineers and on the best engineering advice we've seen it's likely that the Cathedral does need to be demolished,'' he said.
Opponents of the demolition have vowed to continue their campaign and have called on the Government to get involved.
Restore Christchurch Cathedral spokesman Mark Belton said the Anglican Church was "cheating'' the people of Christchurch and New Zealand of the opportunity to restore the Cathedral.
"This bishop did not want to know about restoring this cathedral. She clearly has no love, or affection or desire to restore the cathedral, and she has turned her back on all the offers that have been made to her.''
Proponents of saving the building believe it can be saved for $20-30 million - while the church has argued it will cost more than $100 million.
Mr Key said the focus now should be on building a suitable replacement cathedral.
"There's always an enormous amount of emotion when it comes to a building as iconic as that, so I understand people's concerns - it's had a great part in the history of Christchurch and I know people will want to make sure that there is a future cathedral that can encompass that,'' he said.
