Centre delayed despite funding

Christchurch’s convention centre was delayed despite the Government releasing money to make it happen faster, official documents show.

The Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority (Cera) asked Earthquake Recovery Minister Gerry Brownlee and Cabinet late last year to release allocated funds to ‘‘enable the successful completion and acceleration of the master-planning and development stage’’ of the anchor project.

It is understood the request was agreed to and the funds released.

Last month, Cera announced the convention centre’s completion date had been pushed back from 2017 to late 2018. Prime Minister John Key said the project’s costs were getting prohibitive.

In its request last year, Cera also asked for the potential release of ‘‘additional’’ funds to ‘‘ensure that swift action can be taken at the appropriate time to maintain the momentum of the project beyond the master-planning and development stage’’.

The request was in a paper from Cera to Cabinet. It was not clear in the documents whether the request was for money additional to the $284 million the government had already pledged. Figures were redacted.

Cera said it did not request funding above the $284m in the documents. It was a standard process that often applied for large publicly funded projects where part of the funding was released for different stages of the work.

Key last month hinted at a possible reduction in size to fit the budget, while Brownlee declined to give more details on a potential budget blow-out.