The national archive will not have enough space to store vital records even after its new $290 million building is ready in Wellington.

The construction project is also making current storage pressures worse.

Archives NZ said it was "acutely aware" of the pressures.

These have been "compounded" because Wellington was not taking any more physical records until the new Heke Rua Archive opens, due in 2026.

Even then, the new central city building will offer only "a small amount of shelving space" for extra records, Archives told RNZ.

Instead, these records, currently held in the bowels of government agencies and departments, are meant to go into a new storage space at Levin/Taitoko.

But though the land for this was bought with Budget 2020 funding and a design had been done Archives said there was no money for building it, Internal Affairs' director of Tāhuhu Rob Stevens told RNZ.

The goal of opening it in 2025 "was subject to securing Budget 2022 funding for construction which was unsuccessful", he said.

The new aim was 2027. RNZ asked what plan B was, if it did not get funding.

"The business case for the next stages of the project will include analysis for a range of options," Stevens responded.

You can read more in an article by Phil Pennington at https://tinyurl.com/ye5t5p4z.