30 April 2024
File Ref: IRC-6108
Naomi Steenkamp
[FYI request #25986 email]
Tēnā koe Ms Steenkamp
Thank you for your email of 4 March 2024 to Wellington City Council | Te Kaunihera o Pōneke (the
Council) requesting information regarding speed bumps on Hawkins Hil Road, Brooklyn. Your request
has been considered under the Local Government Of icial Information and Meetings Act 1987
(LGOIMA). Please find my response below.
1. Please advise the total cost budgeted and approved for the planned install of 12 Watts Design
speed humps on Hawkins Hil Road, Brooklyn in March 2024, or as an alternative - please
provide the cost per hump (i.e. total cost / 12).
I am unable to provide the exact cost for the speed humps (grouped or individual y), nor am I able to
provide you with the dif erences between the contractor quotations. Where information has been
provided to the Council by a third party and that information falls in scope of an answer for a LGOIMA
response, in line with t
he Ombudsman guidance, the Council consults with the third parties to
ascertain any concerns that they may have about the information being released.
When consulting with our contractors involved in the project did not want the costs related to specific
tasks made available, as the information is commercially sensitive. For this reason, I am withholding
information related to question one pursuant to section 7(2)(b)(ii) of the LGOIMA, to protect
information where the making available of the information would be likely unreasonably to prejudice
the commercial position of the person who supplied or who is the subject of the information.
Financial information I am able to provide is the total allocated capital budget of $1,624,000 for the
minor improvements project to complete works between Ashton Fitchett Drive and the former
Woffingtons site. To date the Council has spent $1,232,000 on the Hawkins Hil Right of Way (RoW)
minor improvements which has been focused between Ashton Fitchett Drive and Southernthread
Road RoW. The Council has contractual commitments of $196,400 for physical and engineering
works stil to be completed between Ashton Fitchett Drive and the former Woffingtons site, bringing
our actual and committed spend to $1,428,400.
Pending resource consent approval for earth works, the Council wil be committing the remaining
$195,600 to carry out sight line visibility improvements and carriage way resealing between
Southernthread Road RoW and the former Woofingtons before the end of June 2024. Engineering
works have been undertaken on this section and consideration was given to not completing the earth
works with the decision made to progress as far as our project budget wil allow to improve RoW user
safety on this last section.
2. Please provide:
a. the difference in cost between the initial contractor's (Mil s Albert) quotation for the
works, and the current quotation accepted (PCL Contracting), and;
The tendering process for contractors is completed with an obligation of confidence, as contractors
provide specific details that relate to their commercial vantage. To maintain the same level of
confidence in the Council by current and future contractors, as wel as the commercial sensitivities
involved in the contracts themselves, I am withholding the dif erence is cost between contractors
pursuant to section 7(2)(b)(i ) of the LGOIMA, to protect information where the making available of the
information would be likely unreasonably to prejudice the commercial position of the person who
supplied or who is the subject of the information.
b. the reasons why the "Pavement and Minor Safety Improvement" project only
commenced 24 February 2022 - some 3 years 3 months after gaining the approval
and support in the City Strategy Committee Meeting of 22 November 2018 - and is
stil not completed 2 years later?
Resolution 4.1.2c of t
he City Strategy Meeting of 22 November 2018 directed officers to Quantify and
apply for funding through the 2021 Long-Term Plan (LTP) to deliver improvements and maintenance
on the RoW which was approved in June 2021. Between July 2021 and February 2022 when the
project started, Council submitted a request for tender to engage and appoint a contractor to deliver
the project.
Initially Council had negotiated agreement with private landowners to allow access over private
property for Hawkins Hil RoW users so they could exit Long Gully via Wrights Hil while the RoW was
closed for maintenance works to occur which was removed in June 2022. This meant our contractors
could not complete resurfacing works as quickly as expected and a change in methodology was
needed to complete the works while stil allowing for traffic movements on the RoW. This change
combined with increased seasonal rainfall led to our project engineers, Tonkin and Taylor, and
contractor advising to postpone works until Spring so that they could adjust their methodology and
wait for better weather to lay asphalt with work recommencing in October 2022.
Except for installing the speed humps, al work on sections A and B (found in Tonkin and Taylor’s
Design Report) were completed by March 2023 and by mutual agreement, Mills Albert Contracting
finished work on the project. Following this, Council investigated options with our roading
maintenance contractors on how to install the speed humps without closing the road and ended up
carrying out the works at night which occurred in March 2024.
Council currently has a resource consent underway for earthworks on section C (also found in the
Tonkin and Taylor Design Report) to improve sightline and visibility and if granted are expecting to
undertake the work in late May/early June. Upon completion of this stage of work, Hawkins Hill RoW
wil revert to our maintenance team in Parks, Sport and Recreation.
As per section 7(1) of the LGOIMA, I do not consider that in the circumstances of this response, the
withholding of this information is outweighed by the other considerations which render it desirable to
in the public interest to make the information available.
You have the right, by way of complaint under section 28(1) of the LGOIMA, to request an
investigation and review of the Council’s decision to withhold information by the Ombudsman.
Information about how to make a complaint is available at
www.ombudsman.parliament.nz or
freephone 0800 802 602.
If you require further information, please contact
[email address].
Nāku noa, nā
Danika Morris-Brown
Senior Advisor Official Information
Complaints & Information Assurance
Wellington City Council
