Andrew Little: Wellington mayor on the Golden Mile project getting put on hold

Wellington's mayor says scrapping the controversial Golden Mile project would be relatively easy, but they want to act in good faith.

Councillors voted 12-4 to hold fire, after warnings the project could balloon to $220 million up from the 2021 budget of $160 million.

Doing up Courtney Place could cost up to $25 million more than approved.

Andrew Little says there's no contract or exit costs - but there's an agreement with NZTA. 

"We actually need to maintain that relationship with NZTA, we've got some big projects scheduled for Wellington now too."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Heather do for Cel.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
Wellington City Council has voted to pause work on the
Golden Mile project yesterday. The cost blew out even further.
It's now estimated to cost two hundred and twenty million dollars.
That's almost triple what it was originally supposed to cost.
Andrew Little, as the Mayor of Wellington, high Andrew chances
that you're going to scrap this all together.

Speaker 1 (00:20):
Look, I don't know that we need to look at
the cost of it. The realitea is right now the
Wellington City Council cannot take on any more cost or
any more debt because of the cost playouts we've had
another projects. The reality is, Look, there are some good
things about the Golden Mile, but there may well be
alternative we should be exploring. So for me, it's about
focusing on what the objectives are. But what I'm very

(00:41):
clear about is that we cannot commit Wellingtonians to cost
increases that simply we cannot be here right now.

Speaker 3 (00:48):
What's caused this particular blowout, Look, I think as they've
been dealing with a contractor, they found that the costs
that were specified what four years ago are no longer realistic.

Speaker 1 (01:01):
That's not a surprise, but I think, like all these things,
you know, you get down to the detail planning, things
turn up and it just costs more. And the problem
with God is that even though the government had agreed
at that time to fund fifty one percent of it,
they kept the dollar amount at that rate, at the
twenty twenty one to the level. So any increase in
cost is entirely forced on Willington rate payers and that's

(01:23):
what's making it just too much for us.

Speaker 2 (01:26):
Right, So it's not like they've gone underground and they've
found all of a sudden there are pipes that need
to be fixed or some additional cost. It is it
is just inflation.

Speaker 1 (01:33):
Yeah yeah, yeah, during the pipes underground was alreadyffected. Then
that was that was a twenty million dollars part of
the project. I mean the questions of course, whether that's
a realistic cost now as well. But the reality is
this is this is just inflation and doing what the
plan said, you know, people wanted done.

Speaker 2 (01:51):
Andrew, is it possible to get out of these contracts
without just you know, all kinds of ridiculous stuff like
break fees and sun costs and stuff like that.

Speaker 1 (02:00):
No contracts have been signed, so there's no exit cost
to there's no contract to get out of, so there's
no exit cost. What we have got is an agreement
with Wakakatai New Zealand Transport Agency on doing that project.
And if we change anything on that, I mean, obviously
we lose funding, but we also lose Americ kind of

(02:20):
goodwill or good faith. But entering into the next contract
and we actually need to maintain that relationship with NCTA.
We've got some big projects scheduled for Wellington now too
and we need to maintain that relationship. So a lot
of boards that we're juggling in the air, but the
bottom line is Wellingtonians can't take on any more cost

(02:41):
and we've got to get a right, the right result
for Wellington, right Andrew.

Speaker 2 (02:45):
Thank you as always, Andrew little Mior of Wellington.

Speaker 1 (02:48):
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