Golden Mile dream dying as immediate stop-work notice looms

Monday, 27 November 2023

The $139 million worth of Golden Mile work was a key part of Let’s Get Wellington Moving.

The $7.4 billion Let’s Get Wellington Moving package is somewhere between dead and critical, with an incoming minister saying even works that are now under way should pause.

Part of the National-Act coalition agreement was that a stop-work notice be issued for a number of projects, including Let’s Get Wellington Moving (LGWM).

On Sunday, ACT leader David Seymour said the new government, being formed on Monday, would have to issue the stop work notice but he expected that work on Wellington’s Golden Mile should cease immediately.

Incoming Transport and Local Government Minister Simeon Brown said a decision on whether the Golden Mile would be included in the stop work notice was yet to be made.

The $139 million worth of Golden Mile work - an overhaul and increased pedestrianisation of the central city route from Courtenay Place to the railway station - was a key part of LGWM. While the big ticket LGWM items such as a second Mount Victoria tunnel and light rail are yet to get under way, early works have started on the Golden Mile.

LGWM was to be 60% funded from the Government via Waka Kotahi and 20% each from Wellington’s city and regional councils, but individual programmes had different funding splits. The Golden Mile was to be 51% Waka Kotahi funded, with the city council paying the rest.

Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau said the main Golden Mile contract would be signed before a new government was sworn in. It has not been signed and a new government will be sworn in at 11am on Monday.

National has pledged to ditch LGWM but still build the second Mount Victoria tunnel.

Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau in October told The Spinoff that the contract for construction work on the Golden Mile was “literally days away” but then revised that, telling The Post contracts would be “well signed” before a new government was sworn in.

The thinking was that it would be much harder to pull the pin on the Golden Mile if the main contract had been signed.

The new government is being signed in at 11am on Monday. Whanau on Sunday confirmed the main contract was still unsigned.

“It is my intention to meet with the new Transport Minister as soon as possible to discuss the Golden Mile and other key projects,” she said.

An artist’s impression of the Golden Mile changes.

“I will be making the case that we continue to progress many of these projects that are supported by a majority of Wellingtonians.

“But I am open to different ways of working together and getting things done.”

Wellington City councillor Ray Chung, a vocal opponent of many parts of LGWM, said Friday’s government announcement of a stop-work notice had Labour and Green councillors “wetting their pants” about what it meant.

Labour councillor Nureddin Abdurahman said the future of LGWM, including the Golden Mile, was “uncertain”.

But he urged the Government to look at the fact that the city had voted in a pro-LGWM mayor, council and MPs. The new government needed to govern for all of New Zealand, not just those that voted for it, he said.

LGWM did not respond by deadline to questions about what the incoming government’s planned scrapping of the programme meant for it and its staff, or what the stop work notice meant for the Golden Mile.