The $9m memo council denies getting – but did
The memo the Wellington City Council says it never received, outlining $9.2 million of needed pipe work about to be buried beneath a $55 million bus and cycle way, was in fact sent to it.
The new information has seen council chief infrastructure officer Siobhan Procter changing her tune – in May she said the council didn’t get the draft memo but now she says it was sent to a council staff member, who then left, and the council cannot find a record of it.
Wellington Water, responding to a Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act request, confirmed the memo was sent to Let’s Get Wellington Moving (LGWM) – the entity running the now-ditched $7.4 billion transport overhaul for the capital – then sent on to an unnamed council staff member. The council, as one of the three LGWM partners, was also represented at LGWM.
The Post in May revealed that Wellington Water in 2022 wrote a draft memo showing that there was $5.2m of must-do pipe work beneath Thorndon Quay, with another $4m of “should do” work. The memo said costs were based on 2020 rates so would have gone up.
Thorndon Quay business owner Paul Robinson urged the council to fix pipes as it installed the new $54.8m bus and cycleway above them, to avoid having to dig them up later. He confirmed he was told by the council that it never got the draft memo.
Council infrastructure boss Siobhan Procter then appeared on RNZ in May to defend the council starting work without addressing the pipes.
She claimed variations of “we didn't receive any advice from Wellington Water in this particular case” multiple times during the interview.
Procter, in a statement yesterday, said she never received “any advice” from Wellington Water or LGWM about the pipes there.
She said the first time she saw the draft memo was when she was sent it by Robinson, who obtained it after an official information request.
“On receipt of the memo from Mr Robinson, I became aware that one of the people on the memo was a WCC staff member who has since left WCC and we have been unable to find any record of the memo despite an extensive search of their emails and files,” Procter said.
Procter said she would have been “formally advised” by Wellington Water or LGWM if pipes had been confirmed as needing replacement within five years. This advice never came, she said.
Robinson has now launched a petition, which has reached more than 1000 of its 1500-signature target, calling for all works on Thorndon Quay to stop until an independent review of the project was completed.
Among its allegations were that staff did not tell councillors about the state of the pipes, some of which were more than a century old.
Councillor Diane Calvert who has found herself at odds with the council as she advocated for Thorndon Quay businesses said it was surprising the state of the underlying pipes were not “checked and double checked”.
“Nevertheless now that this information has publicly surfaced ... [the council] needs to act immediately on getting advice on the best way forward to renew the ageing pipe network before it is covered up once again.”