It’s not just Brussels that comes up with daft regulations you know!
Coming from the UK – you would think I’d heard every silly rule in the book, but it seems that New Zealand councils can be just as bizarre in what they let you do, and the lengths they will make you go to before they allow you to do the simplest things.
Weighing by the Kilo, and marking distance by Kilometre is already here, so you just have to get used to it one way or another; but I didn’t think New Zealand had come up with regulation that are as batty as the whole “Thy Cucumbers shalt not be curly” thing.
Apparently – I was wrong.
So here, courtesy of the Sunday Star Times: is a list of wacky rules made up by people who obviously haven’t got anything better to do all day:
In Palmerston North, you may need smoke alarms in your house if you’re putting a swimming pool in the garden. (Apparently – the pool fence may catch fire, which may spread to the house).
And since Wellington introduced “plan change 65″ in July, a resource consent has been needed to dig a hole with walls steeper than 63 degrees. (You may need your kids to help you remember how to use a protractor to measure this) Exemptions to the rule include gardening, grave digging, putting in a letterbox and topdressing a field but not digging in a sandpit.
In Christchurch you must put your wheelie rubbish bins a minimum of 50cm apart. (Hopefully a ruler is supplied with every bin).
In Manukau you need a building consent if you move a toilet to the opposite corner of the bathroom.
In Waimakariri district you can’t build within 250m of another property if the other owner spreads pig effluent on their lawn. (Why would you want to live next to anyone who spread pig effluent on their garden in the first place???)
In Invercargill you need a building consent to change tap positions in a sink. (There is just no comment you can make on this one.)
Putting in an above-ground swimming pool in Waitakere requires a building consent, plus a $1000 deposit in case a builder’s truck damages the road. (I would bleeding well hope the that council built its roads to be able to handle a truck or two – although given the way they are building the road to our house – I guess that may be expecting to much.)
All in all – just plain bizarre. The serious side is that ACT’s Rodney Hide is trying to bring attention to these things, and put pressure on Government to reduce the number of silly rules and regulations that cause so much grief for many New Zealanders. Good on him I say – it really is about time that Governments: Local or Nationally started using common sense instead of trying to look clever and failing miserably.
Related posts:
- Only In New Zealand: The Right Turn Rule.
- Exodus Gym – it’s a bit big.
- New Zealand’s Bizarre Easter Trading Laws
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