Queen St work may unearth budget blowout worth $500k
The Queen St upgrade project in Richmond may be heading for a $500,000 budget blowout.
However, Tasman District Council engineering services manager Richard Kirby yesterday told councillors he hoped to pull back that potential overrun.
‘‘At this stage, the figures are all up in the air,’’ Kirby said. ‘‘But my knowledge from the discussions two weeks ago with ... the team was that we could be potentially heading to a half a million at least over the $13m [project budget].
‘‘That’s when I said: ‘Right, we’ve got to try and address this and pull this back’ and my intention is to pull that back.’’
The Queen St upgrade has a total project cost of $13m. Of that, just over $11m is for the construction work, which is a tendered contract originally awarded to Hawkins Infrastructure. Hawkins was later acquired by Downer.
Kirby said he hoped to report ‘‘where the costs are landing’’ to the TDC engineering committee in about six weeks.
News of the potential budget blowout comes after some business owners outlined concerns about the adverse effects of the delayed work, which is more than three months behind schedule.
In a report for the council committee meeting yesterday, Kirby says the upgrade has been ‘‘fraught with interruptions’’.
‘‘This has primarily been caused by unforeseen obstacles encountered underground. Utility services were not in the same locations as identified in the asbuilt plans.’’
At the meeting, Kirby expanded on some of the reasons for the delays and associated additional costs.
The discovery of pockets of Argentine ants, which came out aggressively when their environment was disturbed, was not a major cost but it was a major interruption for the workflow.
‘‘Every time that happens, we’ve got our spray guy on standby,’’ he said. ‘‘At this stage, it’s costing us probably about $15,000 for the last six months dealing with it.’’
It was tipped to cost about $400,000 to dispose of a layer of old coal tar seal that was found in the road foundations.
‘‘That’s one aspect that I’m trying to deal with to make sure that we work that within the risk profile we’ve got in our contingencies for the project,’’ Kirby said, adding later that he had ‘‘a feeling’’ the project had about $700,000 built in for contingencies.
The replacement of a crumbling section of existing stormwater pipeline that was originally thought to be in good shape cost about $300,000.
Kirby told councillors it was hoped Downer would come back by the end of the month with a new programme of work that aimed to get the entire upgrade completed by April 30, as originally sched- uled. ‘‘ We also asked them to revisit the schedule of prices and the scope of work and identify where the risks are from their perspective,’’ he said.
TDC had ‘‘lost credibility’’ with some shop owners on Queen St because ‘‘we said we were going to get things done by a certain times and we haven’t met those deadlines’’.
‘‘We need to stick to that [new] programme,’’ Kirby said. ‘‘ We need to build some unforseen circumstances into that programme so that we don’t actually compromise it.’’
The upgrade would stop on December 1 and not restart until early February, as originally planned, so the full street would be open for the busy summer period.