the large amount of rework being undertaken. Progress was not helped by the Government directing the employment of a large number of assisted immigrants many of whom had little construction experience and limited English. In early 1953 at the government's expense the consortium flew out 309 workers from Great Britain. By October 1953 it was clear that the consortium would not meet the contracted July 1955 date for generation of the first power. In an attempt to improve progress the contractor replaced a number of senior project staff. Labour relations were also deteriorating due to uncertainty over the management changes, reduction in working hours to 40 per week and the impact of cost overruns on the workers pay. In November 200 British workers demanded either a 70-hour working week or their tickets back to Great Britain. Downer's takeover With it having been necessary in 1953 to introduce power rationing in the South Island due to a shortage of generation the government decided the slow progress couldn't continue and requested two directors of Downer & Co, a major New Zealand construction company to attend in two days time a meeting at the Prime Minister's summer cottage on 24 April 1954. At this meeting which was attended by representatives of the consortium, Arnold Downer and Arch McLean from Downers were requested by the government to enter the project as the managing partner with a 25% interest. After spending £4 million the existing contract was cancelled and a schedule of rates contract was agreed upon with the renamed Cubitts Zschokke Downer with a planned completion date of late 1956. As a result of the forming of this new consortium Arnold Downer was put in charge of all site activities. Diversion of the river The preliminary works for the diversion of the river got off to a bad start when the explosive charge used in mid-June to remove the upstream dumpling damaged the steel sheet pile cofferdam downstream of it. This cofferdam has been constructed to ensure that water didn't carrying any blast debris from the upper dumpling into the sluice channel. Eventually the debris and the cofferdam were removed, allowing unrestricted flow down the diversion channel. Now it was necessary to block off the river so all of the water flowed down the diversion channel. The river's average flow was and by June it had fallen to , but by the time work