Have they or haven’t they?

(This opinion piece was originally published on Scoop.)

by Helene Ritchie

There’s something weird going on at the Wellington City Council. It involves consultation on the future of the City to Sea Bridge.

Helene Ritchie

Despite having already sought our views (which we have given many times to the Council and also to the Independent Hearings panel), the council is now asking us to say what we think about three options for the future of the bridge:

• Retain and strengthen it
• Demolish it and replace it with a pedestrian crossing across a busy multi-lane arterial road with new traffic lights.
• Demolish it and replace it a skinny new bridge (as well as with an at-grade pedestrian crossing)

But this is where the “weird” comes in:

4 September: The Council put out a self-congratulatory vision for the future of Te Ngakau/Civic centre – a so-called ‘One Vision’ offering 40 pages of confusing options (without any professional evidence), and announcing that “public consultation on the plan will start in October’ .

4 September: On the same day, Councillors met and were briefed on the vision document and the options.

At that briefing the chair asked “Do we have to consult when we have already decided, in the LTP, to demolish? Why do we have to present that again as an option?”.

Staff replied saying: “We would need to take legal advice first and foremost. We wouldn’t need to re-consult if your choice is to go on the current (demolition) trajectory. We will check that. If we do bring back advice, we will need to ensure it is linked to previous decisions you have made.”

That’s not only weird but also highly contradictory. On the same day, the Council was not only announcing consultation on the options but also saying it had made its decision and chosen the option to demolish.

10 September: Shocked to realise that the Chair (Councillor Matthews) and some councillors claim that the decision to demolish had been made in the LTP, I wrote to councillors and asked for the legal advice to be sent to me. My request was sent to staff to answer.

11 September: I received a reply from a Council business unit, not from a named person, (perhaps a robot?) saying I would need to wait up to 10 days for an answer.

12 September: I wrote again, in an endeavour to spare council staff 10 days of work:

I have 3 questions which will take 2 minutes to reply to:
When is the legal advice expected?
When will councillors receive it?
At what council meeting will it be presented?

I received another anonymous reply, repeating that it would take up to ten days and “please bear with us and know we are working hard to respond.”

12 September: The environment and infrastructure committee of the Council met and considered an officer report ‘Te Ngākau basement strengthening’ asking for approval to spend $29.8 million to strengthen the basement under Civic Square up to 35%NBS.

The report explained:

“On 9 November 2023, the LTP Committee resolved to remove $230m capex provision for Te Ngākau strengthening projects, including Capital E and the Te Ngākau basement, from the draft LTP budget, and instead include $65m to investigate other options, including demolition.”

A councillor at that meeting asked what was happening with the remaining $38.2million of the $65million approved in the LTP. The officer’s answer? “It is for the city to sea bridge” (demolition).

What is so weird about of all of this is that the council is asking the public whether it thinks the Council should demolish the city to sea bridge, while on the same day saying it has already decided to demolish it.

And what is alarming is the fact that staff appear keen to demolish as soon as possible.

Where does that leave the public?

The expensive and unnecessary legal advice should be made public anyway.

But regardless, it seems obvious that the Council has a predetermined position. How can we trust the council to ensure a fair consultation?

How can the mayor and councillors convince us that they have open minds?

Surely the only way forward is to assemble an independent panel made up of engineering, planning, architecture, mana whenua experts and some persons selected from the public. Only then will we have expert advice and a legally robust consultation. We the public need to be assured that we are going to be listened to this time.

Helene Ritchie, a former deputy mayor, is Chair of the Wellington Civic Trust