How to do the job

The new Cashel Mall opens in the Village of the Damned.

This area was the only bit of retail worth a damn in the whole central city, anyway.

I have said all along that the way to go, if you must build on a peat jelly, is to go light and low- and cheap. These containers are perfect for this, as are light steel-framed and corrugated-steel prefab buildings. A bit of paint and trim and they don't have to look like an industrial area.

Could you see the powers-that-be ever consent to letting a developer to make a container mall anywhere else in NZ? Thought not. I bet they weren't keen on it for Christchurch, either.

Nor would the save-Christchurch for the Neanderthals brigade that want all the old stone crappers reconstructed- at somebody else's expense, of course.

Now how about a container cathedral?

Beats a 50 million dollar symbol of the church's vanity...