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Monday 31 March 2008

Council awards contract for new footpaths

Clutha District Council has awarded Fulton Hogan Ltd a $3.8 million contract for its 2008-10 footpath renewal and upgrade programme.

This contract was advertised following wide public consultation on the footpath renewal and upgrade programme during late 2007. Council received four tenders and resolved to award the contract to Fulton Hogan at its meeting on 20 March 2008.

Manager District Assets Jules Witt said the contract included $1.72 million for new footpaths; $1.9m for footpath renewals, drainage renewals and associated improvements; and $257,000 for safety footpaths.

Mr Witt said the total contract price was estimated to be about 5% over budget, which meant the new targeted rate for the new footpaths would be slightly higher than first anticipated.

For example, in Balclutha the new targeted rate for about 6.8km of new footpaths was expected to be about $48 (incl GST) per property (per year over 20 years) – slightly higher than the $42 first anticipated for the same amount of work.

However, Mr Witt said Council had decided to hold the New Footpath/Berm Rate at proposed levels for 2008/09, and wait until next year to confirm the new rate for 2009/10 and beyond (as outlined in the table below).

The $1.9m for footpath renewals will be loan funded from existing budgets, which means no additional impact on rates.

Mr Witt said the figures above also took into account changes made to the footpath programme at the Council meeting on 13 December 2007, when councillors considered the 236 public submissions received on the proposed work.

After considering all the submissions, minor changes were made to proposed new footpaths in most townships, while there were significant reductions in the amount of new work for Lawrence, Clinton, Stirling and Waihola. The changes were made after the majority of submitters from these townships indicated they felt the amount of proposed new footpaths was too much.

Mr Witt said work on footpath renewals would begin within the next month, with the initial work focused on renewals in Milton.