Balustrades coming for Wellington waterfront – $6m budget doomed to blow out
Tuesday, 6 August 2024
A Wellington City Council boss has told an coroner’s inquest that balustrades and lighting are coming for much of the 3.5km edge of the city wharf edges and it is all-but certain that the $6 million budget will be blown.
Sandy Calkin, 30, was last seen walking along the Wellington harbour wharves after drinking with friends on July 2021.
His body was found in the harbour a week later. A coroner’s inquest into his death – including probing questions into whether the council took wharf safety seriously enough – started in Wellington on Monday.
His mother, Maria Calkin said his death had to be a catalyst for changes.
Under questioning, council parks, sports and recreation manager Paul Andrews said $6m of council money was now earmarked for edge protection and lighting. The $6m budget would be “significantly exceeded”, he said.
Work would include some sort of edge protection for 3.5km of the wharves that had a fall of a metre or more to a hard surface or water, Andrews said.
Much of this would be balustrades around the waterfront with “second chance” barriers, such as benches, in others. There would be places, such as the outer-T of Queen’s Wharf, where balustrades could be trickier as they were working wharves, he said.
He confirmed plans to fully light the “spine” – running the length of the wharves – goes back to 2005 recommendations. That spine lighting was expected to be complete next year. There had been a recent “shift” in council thinking meaning it was now putting higher priority on safety, he said.
An old report into waterfront safety raised issues with areas where there was a drop in level and change in level. Both of these issues remained in place in the area Calkin was last seen. Lighting was also not up to standard, he said.
Andrews confirmed the council records showed 13 serious waterfront incidents between 2015 and 2022.
But using sources including media reports, Calkin’s family found 19 incidents.
This missing six included Calkin, and another body pulled from the harbour later in 2021. There was a woman in 2020 who, after a night out clubbing, fell off the wharves, hit her head on a beam two to three metres below. She was rescued.
In 2019 a woman who had been drinking at the waterfront was found dead in the water. There was also the 2016 drowning of Cory Ian Pearson, and the death of Finbarr Clabby in the harbour in 2015.
“We acknowledge our deficiency in reporting,” Andrews told the inquest. He said the council would have done more if the incidents were down to its property failing.
The council had since changed systems and would record all similar incidents. It would go on to investigate some, he said.
Detective Constable Simon Cobb told the inquest it appeared Calkin had “fallen into the harbour and been unable to find his way to safety”.
Markings on Calkin’s body “consistent with being grabbed and held” but foul play had been ruled out, Cobb said. The injuries could have been sustained in the fall.
On the night leading to his death, Calkin had been drinking with colleagues at his work, Cafe L’affare, then had gone to one colleague’s house for more drinks. They then headed to Courtenay Place bar Lulu.
As he later made his way towards the railway station, CCTV cameras picked him up leaving the bar at 12.25am, then as he made his way along the waterfront wharves. The last image of him alive was at 12.37am outside the Crabshack restaurant on Queen’s Wharf.