Nicola Young: Wellington City Councillor on the prospect of the City to Sea Bridge getting demolished

A defence of Wellington's City to Sea Bridge as it faces demolition. 

Work to demolish the earthquake prone bridge could start this week after the High Court tossed out a judicial review to save it. 

Wellington City Councillor Nicola Young says even if people think it's ugly, it does serve an important purpose. 

"It's a safety aspect - it's a lovely way to cross over to the waterfront rather than going over a pedestrian crossing."

Nicola Young's concerned the replacement bridge will take too long to put in place. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now Wellington, Wellington City Council might start knocking down that
ugly City to See bridge as early as Friday because
they've won a court case against the group wanting to
keep the bridge. Nikola Young is a Wellington City councilor
and with us high Nikola, Hi, do you reckon the
other lot will appeal?

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Look, I don't know, but there were six councilors who opposed.
I opposed the demolition because the bridge is a much
safer way to cross State Highway One than a pedestrian crossing.
And you know, we are overwhelmed by the number of
people who are contacting us. Now I think we will.
There are ways of trying to stop it. But what
has been made very clear to me by the Chief

(00:38):
Executive with whom I spoke today was at the beginning
of the judicial review, the two sets of lawyers agreed
that if the council one, they would have three days
the Civic Trust would have three days to appeal. So
the council is just following the process. The officers have
the authority to enact the decision to demolish the bridge,
so it's just a matter of what we do to
try and change it. So we're looking at doing a

(01:01):
notice of ravocation yep, carry on, and that has to
go to the same committee, and then because we are
coming to the end of the Trianium, we'd have to
call a special meeting for it. So it's a matter
of whether we have the support for the notice of
revocation and for the extra meeting. Who knows, but we
are going to try it because the number of Wellingtonians

(01:21):
who want to retain the bridge, you know, like it
or putting it aside the aesthetics, it's a safety aspect.
It's a lovely way to cross over to the waterfront
rather than going through it over a pedestrian crossing.

Speaker 1 (01:33):
You just ask which of these two options is cheaper
to knock the bridge down and replace it with a functional,
smaller bridge, or to keep the bridge and strengthen it.

Speaker 2 (01:42):
Well, of course they're saying they'll knock it down have
a pedestrian crossing in the interim, but you know what
happens in Wellington that the pedestrian crossing will stay forever.
It's hard to say hither because you never know where
the numbers we get. Because we've been told by some
other engineers that the prices we've been quoted are far
too high. And I'm not an engineer and not a
quantity surveyor, so I wouldn't know. But we just think,

(02:03):
we have to think. Wellington has been full of roads
being ripped up, buildings being pulled down, road cones everywhere. Enough,
you know, let's just keep the bridge and work around it.

Speaker 1 (02:13):
Brilliant Nicholas, thank you very much. I do appreciate your time.
That's Nicola Young, Wellington City councilor this is what happens
when you can no longer trust your officials, and Wellington
City Council officials have absolutely done this to themselves.

Speaker 2 (02:24):
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