Close to a quarter of a million dollars in additional funding has been approved for George Town’s ‘Taj Mahal’ of waste transfer centres.
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Initial costing set the council back close to $1.1 million, but the project now requires more funding because of unscoped projects.and unaccounted for costs.
That included costs associated with collecting and handling recyclables.
Mayor Bridget Archer said George Town had “ended up with the Taj Mahal of waste transfer centres”.
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Cr Archer said, during public question time, funding reallocated from budgeted projects meant they would not go ahead until there was funding available.
“I don’t see another way,” Cr Archer said.
Projects which have lost funding include the Howard Street drainage works, York Rivulet landscaping works and addressing culvert network deficiencies for identified sudden failure.
Support for the additional funding was unanimous with councillor Tim Parish moving the recommendations.
However, deputy mayor Tim Harris said, during the debate, it was a “bitter pill to swallow” but the job needed to be done.
Councillor John Glisson said many of the projects considered essential in last week’s budget faced funding cuts one week later.
The facility had an approved project budget of $1,080,000 from the council’s 2016/2017 Capital Works Program with an original completion date of June 30.
The project now totalled $1,321,794 and the revised completion date is November 30.
Building did not start until seven months after a contract was awarded to Shaw Contracting in June last year.
Councillor Heather Barwick said the council needed to be smarter with its budgeting.
The plan to transfer funding from capital works programs was like robbing “Peter to pay Paul”, Cr Barwick said.
The project received a $350,000 government grant.
Tess Brunton
I recently returned from across the ditch where I worked at New Zealand Fairfax paper The Timaru Herald and developed a love of mountains. Originally I'm a mainlander from an area known for cheese, the Bega Valley, who also dabbled in radio at ABC RCAFF before finding a place in newspapers. I can often be found hiking, caving or climbing when I'm not cursing at my work computer or technology in general.
I recently returned from across the ditch where I worked at New Zealand Fairfax paper The Timaru Herald and developed a love of mountains. Originally I'm a mainlander from an area known for cheese, the Bega Valley, who also dabbled in radio at ABC RCAFF before finding a place in newspapers. I can often be found hiking, caving or climbing when I'm not cursing at my work computer or technology in general.
