As many of you will now know, the Dental Council vacated its building at 80 the Terrace in February.
This was in response to ongoing issues relating to the November Kaikoura earthquakes. Initial engineering testing in November cleared the building for re-entry, but in December, the Wellington City Council identified our building as one of 80 buildings in Wellington that required further, more invasive, testing.
This further testing was done in February and identified that the building is in need of structural strengthening work.
Our staff, along with staff from the other responsible authorities who work in the building, vacated the premises and we have been working to urgently locate alternative accommodation.
We are close to securing a lease in the CBD and hope to be moving into new premises in late March. We expect to be in temporary accommodation for around six months, but will negotiate a lease which will allow us to extend this if necessary.
In the interim, most staff have been working from home, while our registration team has been working from a temporary office site.
Physical practitioner files are being relocated from our building to an archival unit to ensure we have continued access and assurance of security while our building is repaired.
The APC round for oral health practitioners is on track and staff have been working to ensure we continue to answer queries coming through the main phone line and inquiries email. We do anticipate there will continue to be delays on some replies and application processing while this issue is resolved and appreciate your patience and understanding.
You can reach us at our usual contacts:
Office hours: 8.30-17.00
Telephone: +64 4 499 4829
Fax: Please note we are experiencing difficulties receiving faxes. Please call or email instead of sending a fax – if you have sent a fax, please check via phone or email to ensure it has been received.
Postal address:
PO Box 10-448
Wellington 6143
New Zealand
Email addresses:
For applications or registered practitioner related queries: inquiries@dcnz.org.nz
For corporate matters: corporate@dcnz.org.nz
For consultation matters: consultations@dcnz.org.nz
For newsletter, website, media or other communications queries: comms@dcnz.org.nz