Motorway project gets new opening deadline
The Transmission Gully motorway north of Wellington will be open by September 2021 but will cost an extra $208 million to complete.
A settlement agreement between the NZTA and companies working on the four-lane motorway has been reached following negotiations related to the commercial impacts of the Covid-19 shutdown on the project.
Construction company CPB HEB Joint Venture will receive a staggered compensation payment of $145.5m under the deal to cover the costs of delays and other impacts resulting from the five-week lockdown in March and April.
Project contractor Wellington Gateway Partnership (WGP) is being given $12.5m and the payment to maintenance contractor Ventia is being finalised, but is expected to be about $5m.
The NZTA has also agreed to spend an extra $45.5m on a contract variation that will allow for the use of a different road surface to be applied on some sections of the 27km road.
As a result, the total cost for the Transmission Gully project is now $1.25 billion and it is due to open by September 27, 2021. The original bill for the road running from Mackays Crossing at Paekakariki to Linden was set to be about $850m and it was initially due to open in April 2020.
The government has slammed the delays and increased costs of the venture and Phil Twyford, Minister of Transport, says the Infrastructure Commission has been asked to oversee an urgent and wide-ranging review into the project.
The NZTA says after the road opens there will be about a further six months of work required, such as landscaping and testing and commissioning of new technology systems, before the project is fully completed.
Under the terms of the settlement, financial penalties will be incurred by the builder if the road is not open by the agreed date.
Complex project
Brett Gliddon, NZTA’s general manager transport services, says the project is about 85 per cent complete and the new agreement will ensure the road is completed to a high standard, meets the needs of customers and still achieves good value for money.
“Transmission Gully is a highly complex project being built on 27km of very difficult terrain, and the Covid-19 stand down period and subsequent work restrictions have caused much longer delays than the five weeks of level four due to the loss of valuable summer construction and other factors,” he explains.
“While any delay is disappointing, we’re pleased that we are now able to provide people with certainty that the road is scheduled to open in just over a year.
“The financial settlement which we’ve now agreed to acknowledges that the Covid-19 pandemic and the resulting disruptions and delays were out the control of CPB HEB and not something they could have reasonably anticipated.”
A new “deep lift” road surface will now be used in areas approaching and over the Wainui saddle, and on other sections of the motorway with steep gradients, accounting for about one-third of the road’s 27km length. The earthworks on these sections of the motorway account for most of the remaining pre-surfacing work yet to be carried out on the project.
Officials have chosen a different pavement for those areas because it is more resilient to poor weather during construction. This means work can continue during marginal winter conditions and brings the new opening date forward by an estimated four months.
WGP is set to operate and maintain the road for 25 years following its opening in 2021, after which time the road it will be handed over to the NZTA at an agreed standard.
