Court order keeps crane at Arrow site
Arrow International’s administrators have obtained a High Court injunction ordering Smith Crane & Construction to leave one of its cranes on the site of an 18-level $28 million apartment development in Auckland.
‘‘It looks like you can get a court injunction to get free cranes in New Zealand,’’ Smith Crane owner Tim Smith said.
He had previously been asked by the administrators, Andrew Bethell and Colin Gower of BDO, to leave the crane at the Airedale St site, and was prepared to do so for a week if they accepted the hire charges, Smith said.
‘‘They refused to accept the charges and instead obtained a court injunction preventing us removing the crane. We’re concerned they’ll operate our crane without our knowledge or payment until the job is finished.’’
The crane was booked to be reerected on an Auckland City Mission project next Thursday.
‘‘We don’t even know if they’ve made it safe with the weather vanes that control the effects of the wind,’’ Smith said.
The crane would normally be dismantled and checked for any required maintenance before it was reassembled at the next site.
Smith said the administrators offered to pay him to continue working on Arrow’s apartment development in Dixon St, Wellington, but he had yet to agree.
He said he wanted a deal that included all the subcontractors to prevent cherry-picking when it came to payments.
‘‘Banks tend to become nervous when they’ve got money at stake,’’ Smith said.
The Dixon St project was different to some of Arrow’s projects because Arrow had an equity stake of about 30 per cent in partnership with developer Vicinity. The apartments have been presold to investors or occupiers.
Other subcontractors have also complained anonymously about losing access to their tools and supplies, but many removed their belongings when rumours began to swirl late last week.
Arrow was also working on a $20m terminal redevelopment for Hawke’s Bay Airport that was about 20 per cent complete. Airport chief executive Stuart Aynsley said he was due to talk with the administrators this week.