Leon Grice: Antarctica NZ Chair talks the changes to proposed Scott Base redevelopment

The fat's been trimmed from Antarctica New Zealand's plans for Scott Base

The crown entity abandoned its previous large module three-building design after five years of development.

An independent review highlighted multiple concerns with the previous proposal - relating to high costs and contracting difficulties.

Board Chair Leon Grice told Mike Hosking the new plan will fit within the almost half a billion dollar budget.

He says a mixture of building new and refurbishing existing buildings is a cost-effective and low-risk way forward.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I think we've got good news. Antactic in New Zealand
has confirmed as planned for redeveloping Scott Base. This has
turned into a bit of a political issue with various
cost blowouts. So what's changed? The Antarctica board chair Leon
Grice is with us leam morning, Good morning mate. This
had for a while the inter Island the ferry about it.
Costs were going through the roof. What happened there?

Speaker 2 (00:20):
I think, you know, building conation went up with cost controls,
women being focused on and and then you know the
methodology that was being used was just going to be
inherently expensive and also risky. So the board before me
in August put the project on pause and then I

(00:42):
came on to the board earlier this year with a
few other members of the board basically finished off the
job and got an independent reviewed to get it under control.

Speaker 1 (00:50):
So what have you got now? Nineteen square meters with
no balcony.

Speaker 2 (00:56):
No, but it won't be a Victorian's house over No.
We think that we can deliver exactly the same scope,
but more functional focused as opposed to design lead, and
we can refurbish a lot of the buildings like the
Hillary Field Center was refurbished in twenty sixteen. We think
we can extend that, devote that completely to science so

(01:20):
that the scientists get a facility for it that will
meet all their needs down there. And we think that
a mixture of building you and a mixture of a
refurbishment and a master plan will deliver us a very
cost effective way of going forward in a much lower
risk of delivery good.

Speaker 1 (01:37):
Is Winston Peter still the chief architect here.

Speaker 2 (01:42):
His brief was pretty simple, we'll just get it sorted,
and that was about and put as much pressure on
us as possible to get it good.

Speaker 1 (01:50):
What's the time frame when's this thing sorted?

Speaker 2 (01:54):
We've got about another year of detailed costing to work
on it, because we've got a translate the designs that
we've got into new modular formats that are easier to transport,
and then we've got to go through cabinets again. We've
got to get the money released because it's not you know,
it was taken back into the system as a tagged contingency.

(02:15):
So we've got a year of work to do that.
Our goal is that will be turning the key to
the new buildings and the refurbished buildings in twenty eight
twenty nine.

Speaker 1 (02:23):
That season fantastic, Go well, I make appreciate your time,
Leon Grass, Who's the Antarctica New Zealand board? Share These
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