Starving quake claimant is feeling weak but won't give up

Southern Response earthquake claimant Peter Glasson has been on a hunger strike outside the government insurers' office in Christchurch for six days. Photo / Supplied

The Christchurch man who is starving himself until he gets a resolution from the government-owned insurer regarding his quake damaged house has lost 1kg a day since starting almost six days ago.

Peter Glasson started his hunger strike outside Southern Response's Christchurch offices last Tuesday after being unable to reach a settlement for his house which was badly damaged in the 2010 and 2011 quakes.

Negotiations between himself and his wife Anne and Southern Response were ongoing last week.

Glasson said he was "feeling pretty weak", but his resolve was just as strong.

"As the middle of day six of my hunger strike approaches, I feel no less resolve than when I started. Anne and I are continuing our negotiations with Southern Response and it would not be appropriate to make any further comment about that."

He had received strong public support but had also been saddened by the number of stories he had heard that were similar to theirs.

"... but it is your encouragement and kind words that are helping me to keep going," Glasson said.

Glasson took the drastic measure of going on a hunger strike after claiming Southern Response had threatened them, spied on them and was manipulating the court process to slow things down.

A court hearing initially scheduled for November last year could now be delayed by another year.

Southern Response had also requested to visit the Glassons' house for the 17th time to carry out further investigations.

A Southern Response spokesman confirmed negotiations had been ongoing with the assistance of Residential Advisory Services, which is an independent service for residential property owners who are facing challenges following the Canterbury earthquakes.

In an earlier response, Southern Response said it remained "sympathetic" to the Glassons' situation.

Southern Response chief executive Anthony Honeybone said the trial was delayed due to extensive new evidence being filed by the Glassons the day before it was due to start and the reason for the latest visit was so experts could assess the new evidence.

"We started working with the Glassons to settle their claim from this point and, after we were able to broadly understand their issues, we offered to mediate with them. Unfortunately mediation was unsuccessful," Honeybone said.

Honeybone said Southern Response shared the Glassons' commitment to facilitating a fair resolution of the court proceedings and their claim and had offered to meet with them after it had the additional information it needed from the site visit.