New town laid out in tiniest detail

Bob Robertson wants people to experience the huge array of features of Pegasus. Picture / Simon Baker

New Zealand's newest town may be several years away, but a miniature version is already allowing people to walk its streets.

The town of Pegasus will eventually be home to 5000 people on a site 25km north of Christchurch.

Construction of the town begins this year and will be completed over the next six to seven years.

A specially built large-scale model launched yesterday by Prime Minister Helen Clark gives an insight into how the town will look.

Built at a cost of $7 million, the model covers 1000sq m inside a renovated warehouse complex and is designed to allow visitors to walk through it as if it is a miniature town.

The miniature was built in China over six months by a team of model-makers. It features almost 2000 individually designed buildings and weighs more than 30 tonnes.

It was shipped to New Zealand in containers and assembly took about three weeks.

Bob Robertson, chief executive of the Infinity Investment Group behind the new town, said: "With a development on the scale of Pegasus, we felt it was extremely important to allow people to experience, at least in miniature, the enormous array of features the new town will offer."