Waimakariri’s capital works ‘well behind schedule’ amid labour shortage

Nicole Mathewson Reporter from Northern Outlook

From local democracy reporter Adam Burns:
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Building managers at the Waimakariri District Council are disappointed the delivery of major capital works continues to lag behind as they contend with an arduous construction environment.

Several projects within its $70 million capital works programme remain significantly off the pace as resourcing constraints and supply chain factors continue to stretch the council thin.

There is concern the programme could be as low as 66 per cent done by the end of June, after a quarterly update was presented to the council’s audit and risk committee on Tuesday.

"Resourcing is certainly hitting and affecting our ability to deliver the programme," council senior engineering adviser Don Young said.

Utilities and roading manager Gerard Cleary said the council needed to be careful of overcommitting when developing the annual plan, as resourcing issues 'would not be going away overnight".

"We’ve lost quite a few senior engineers and in the consulting industry they're equally as stretched," he said.

"We are disappointed with how this year's capital works delivery is going."

Cleary said council had taken on graduate-level staff to help with the workload.

"It's really hard to get senior engineers and that's probably where we've suffered the most," he said.

"It's a crazy market out there."

Adding further headaches was pricing issues as a result of a tight construction market, contractor availability and "extreme pressure" on the supply chain.

"Most of the recent tenders have had one or two respondents only, and almost all of them are significantly over budget," the capital works quarterly report said.

Councillor Sandra Stewart was unsympathetic at the meeting to the issues and appealed for assurances upcoming work would be completed on time.

"I don’t mean to put the boot in ... but the refrain is very familiar," she said.

"What process is being put in place that will virtually guarantee that you deliver far better than this, given the environment out there."

Deputy mayor Neville Atkinson jumped to the defence of staff and said many of the factors were out of their control.

"How you're even going to price something, or get a timeline out of a contractor. It is just about impossible," he said.

"There’s some realities around this which we have to accept, that in the next year or two there will be movement and we may not get some things done, because of what is out there in this environment.

"No resourcing, higher prices and no guarantee of timelines ... these guys are managing all of it the best they can."