New Zealand's leading specialist compliance consultants
Holmes Farsight was founded in 2011 by Wellington-based building compliance expert Rob Tierney as part of the Holmes Group of specialist consulting businesses.
We are now New Zealand’s largest independent team of specialist compliance consultants with in-depth knowledge of the New Zealand Building Code and environmental health related legislation. Our team combines the best from council and commercial business, giving us the perspective from both parties of the compliance relationship.
Our team take pride in our pragmatic approach to client projects and by drawing on our years of experience and broad project range, we give our clients confidence and assurance that their project, big or small, will succeed.
Holmes Farsight is a New Zealand Accredited Inspection Body under the International Accreditation New Zealand (IANZ): ISO/IEC 17020:2012 accredited. Learn more.
Our team brings positivity and personality to the process – you’ll enjoy working with trustworthy people who keep it simple and speak in plain language
Rob Tierney
With over 30 years of industry experience, including over eight years with Wellington City Council, Rob provides clients with a unique perspective to regulatory challenges. Rob is the key interface between building projects and councils. His pragmatic approach to his clients’ projects saves them time, money and hassle achieving building consent approvals. He has also assisted multiple local councils in NZ. Working with Central Government on the development of Risk Based Consenting, and in 2011 was the regulatory stream leader for the Wellington City Council for the Rugby World Cup. Rob is a former member of the Board, and Technical Chair, of the Building Officials Institute of New Zealand.
Raaj Govinda
Raaj is the Principal of Environmental Health at Holmes Farsight and the President of the New Zealand Institute of Environmental Health in the Wellington Region. He is an effective regulatory principal consultant with extensive experience in environmental health, including alcohol and food licensing, compliance and consenting. Raaj has a proven track record of leading change across regulatory compliance and policy environments and is recognised for his strategic planning, stakeholder relations and engagement, and leadership capabilities. Raaj has an in-depth understanding and assessment of operational and regulatory risk.
Mike Cox
Mike is a Senior Regulatory Consultant who has gained over 30 years of experience in the construction industry. His expertise allows him to assist others understanding of the legislation to promote efficient risk informed decision making. Prior to Holmes Farsight, Mike, began as a builder to site manager, project manager and designer to building officer and later to central government advisor. He later joined the Wellington City Council as a team leader consenting and Com 3 Building Officer. After gaining diverse range of knowledge he moved his expertise to MBIE as a senior advisor, providing Nationwide advice to BCA’s and fire engineers on fire safety and building act matters. He further facilitated workshops and presentations, authored design guides for specialist buildings and restructured the acceptable solutions for fire. His experience is valued at Holmes Farsight as one of the base Regulatory Consultants.
Nik Hardy
Nik brings over 16 years of both private and public sector construction industry experience to the team, including managing large remedial construction projects, through to coordinating, writing and delivering training to members of the construction industry. His specialist knowledge of building surveying has gained him respect within the industry, making him the go to guy for all regulatory concerns. Before joining our team, Nik spent over a decade working on weathertightness and high-risk buildings. He worked for the local government in the Department of Building Control, successfully undertaking inspection and consenting services, training, competency assessments, and providing several large Territorial Authorities and CCO’s with policy advice.
Alison Holleyoak
Alison is an experienced Architect by profession with over 25 years of industry knowledge. Her diverse range of knowledge includes over 8 years of working as a construction lecturer focusing on teaching construction, design and sustainability. She further spent 18 Months working in a Local Government becoming an expert as a building control officer in the building consent division. Her passion for teaching resulted in developing educational programs across the construction disciplines while managing 11 tutors across 3 construction areas. She became the technical writer and Review for Construction qualification to Open Polytechnic as well as Adjunct Tutor for construction - distance e-learning. She further broadened her knowledge working for 18 months in the Local Government. Her vast experience in multiple fields results in excellency and success as a Regulatory Consultant.
Paula Lipscombe
Paula joined Holmes Farsight in 2017 and is a crucial member of our Auckland based team. Drawing on her 10 years’ experience in the travel industry, Paula is an expert organiser. She keeps the Auckland office wheels turning through her document management, employee management and project support, as well as travel, accommodation and events management.
Lee Yasar
Lee brings over 17 years of building industry experience and knowledge to Holmes Farsight. Lee’s areas of technical expertise lie in plumbing and drainage, inspections, CPUs, CCCs and COAs. Prior to joining our team, Lee spend over 14 years gaining experience and knowledge by working in the NZ Construction industry as a plumber, drain layer and gas fitter. Lee also spent over three years working for Local Government, carrying out the functions of a Building Officer out in the field carrying out inspections of residential and commercial buildings under construction.
Ben Healy
Ben brings over 20 years of industry experience in local government and architecture. He specialises in providing Holmes Farsight’s clients with cost-effective regulatory solutions and efficiently acts as the key interface between our clients’ building projects and the Council. Ben has vast knowledge of the Local Government Act, Resource Management Act and the Building Act and codes. Prior to joining our team, Ben spent over a decade working for Local Government as the Technical Leader for Building and Environmental Services. Ben successfully managed a large number of direct and indirect reports, and trained staff to build their competencies in line with the Building Act and codes.
Sue Bai
Sue has been with Holmes Farsight for over four years and brings a wealth of efficiency and organisational knowledge to our team. She had extensive knowledge regarding the regulatory requirement for building consents and compliance through her various roles working at Wellington City Council. She provided high standard administrative and secretarial services to four Building Group Managers during her two years as a Personal Assistant. In her current role as executive administrative support to the CEO, she also manages the office and maintains an overview of all staff and their current projects, upcoming deliverables and deadlines. Sue’s management of the team and the Wellington office ensures we’re an effective and efficient team and always putting our best forward
Saba Al Mansori
Saba graduated from Victoria University of Wellington with a Bachelor of Architectural Studies in 2016. She continued her studies completing part one of a Master of Architecture. Whilst studying, Saba gained valuable building industry knowledge working as a Draughting Technician and specialising in BIM and CAD modelling. She gained experience with Auckland Council as a Reclad Draughting Technician working on designing weather-tightness details with a specialist advisor. She later joined Blue Pencil Architecture as a Graduate Architect working on a diverse range of projects and producing architectural sets for small scale non-restricted building works and design and delivery methodology.
Rasha Al Mansori
Rasha attended Victoria University of Wellington obtaining a Bachelor of Building Science. She has gained 3 years of building industry knowledge including the completion of the 2 year graduate programme with the Auckland City Council as Specialist Re-clad Advisor and later, Graduate Building Surveyor. She gained expert knowledge in weather tightness and remedial construction projects. Her time at Auckland City council resulted in competency in Building Inspections, consent processing, enforcement/compliance, control policy. She later transferred her knowledge and became a successful member of Alexander and Co LTD as a Building Science Engineer overseeing high scale projects. Her enthusiasm and extensive knowledge makes her a proactive member of Holmes Farsight paving the way to excellence.
Quentin Dagger
Quentin joined Holmes Farsight in 2018 and brings over 13 years in the regulatory industry to the team. He provides high quality building related consultancy and regulatory services, and is a key consenting and Building Code consultant that our clients have come to rely on for their building project work. Quentin also coaches and supports other team members into developing their competence and capability to deliver high quality building related regulatory services. Prior to Holmes Farsight he had spent 12 years managing high risk departments within Auckland Council and it’s legacy Waitakere City Council prior to the Auckland amalgamation. Quentin brings 45 years of NZ construction and engineering industry experience. His strengths are in building legislation and code compliance, building surveying and expert witness services.
Claire Lawrence
Claire is an exceptional Quality and Business Development Leader bringing over 10 years’ experience of key account management, administration and compliance. Claire leads the delivery and maintenance of policy, procedures and systems that promote and achieves the quality assurance goals of Holmes Farsight. Being part of the senior leadership team Claire helps with operational and business development strategies.
Louise Ing
Louise graduated from Victoria University of Wellington with a Bachelor of Building science with honours and a Bachelor of Architectural Studies. As well as her extensive theoretical knowledge she has gained 1.5 years in the regulatory industry. Her passion for the industry resulted in her pursuing tutoring for 3 years at Victoria University including tutoring papers such as Design Processes, Structures, first Year Sustainability, Human Environmental, Practice and Management and Construction. Both trained and experienced, Louise makes an excellent Regulatory Consultant.
Jon Astwood
Jon is an exceptional Technical Leader bringing over 27 years of in-depth knowledge of the construction industry, including nine years in local government and 16 years of hands on experience as a professional builder. Jon has been involved in the success of almost every large-scale project completed in Wellington from 2003 and 2013. These include Chews Lane Apartments, Wellington Regional Hospital, Wellington International Airport Terminal upgrade, Supreme Court, Telecom Central, SOHO Apartments, and ASB Wellington Sports Centre, amongst others.
Tanvi Bhagwat
Tanvi graduated with a Bachelor of Architecture from Pune University, India in 2013. She continued her studies at Victoria University of Wellington with her Master of building Science in 2017. Her theoretical knowledge was transferred into 2 years of building industry knowledge. As part of a masters course, she participated in a BIM project for retrofitting a university block. She also Designed and helped construct a prototype single storey dwelling for a 6-member family of women in rural Tanzania. She then became a Junior Interior designer with Design Spirits, Kuala Lumpur and worked independently with Interned at various project management firms in Wellington (RCP, Octa). She also furthered her knowledge in the industry by joining the BRANZ team working on a project dealing with H1 assessment of existing residential dwellings by modelling method.
Ivan Dai
Ivan is one of the newest team members at Holmes Farsight having recently graduated from Victoria University with his Bachelor of Architecture. Joining the team in early 2019, Ivan is a Graduate Regulatory Consultant with a developing understanding of the NZ Building Act and the Building Code. Being new to the industry Ivan works closely with other regulatory and senior regulatory consultants to develop his knowledge, as well as working alongside his team at site visits to aid in his development of skills, knowledge and capabilities for consent processing.
Experience Holmes Farsight
We service all of New Zealand and have offices in three locations including Wellington, Auckland and Christchurch.
Holmes Group
As a business, Holmes Farsight deliver a thorough and robust service, supported by the wider Holmes Group infrastructure, expertise and experience. We sit alongside and complement the existing Holmes Group’s businesses.