Hastings District Council will continue to help Christchurch work through its backlog of building consents but insists it won't have a detrimental impact on its work locally.
Hastings had five staff processing consents in the district and two working on consents for Christchurch. The arrangement between the two councils was made about 18 months ago when Hastings experienced a lull in building activity while Christchurch was frantically recruiting staff following the earthquake.
Hastings mayor Lawrence Yule said the Christchurch council was offering wages "20 per cent higher than us" in order to attract additional building consent staff.
"They also had the problem of finding places for these new people to live. At that time we didn't have a lot of consent work because we were in the middle of a recession, so we reached an agreement with Christchurch City Council.
"We've had staff process consents on the cloud (internet), so they can stay in Hastings. That has been running to this day and we are charging for the work and doing okay out of it."