Council open to sandy save for City to Sea Bridge

Tuesday, 12 November 2024

A developer has a cheap and sandy plan to save the City to Sea bridge and, with the Wellington City Council promising to give it a fair hearing, a third option may be added to the demolish-or-demolish decision.

The council is until Wednesday out for consultation on its redevelopment of Te Ngākau Civic Square including options for the City to Sea Bridge, Michael Fowler Centre, Jack Ilott Green, City Gallery, and the landscaping of the square and adjoining areas.

The council is only consulting on two options for the pedestrian bridge, between the square and waterfront. Both include demolition, largely because the bridge and former Capital E building as well as sea wall are interconnected, according to council documents. All would need to be strengthened or demolished.

Wellington developer Richard Burrell has worked up the sand-filling option with engineers.

But Wellington developer Richard Burrell has been working with engineers to find a cheaper fix: Fill the former Capital E building with sand, or a similar substance, eliminating the quake prone issues by effectively turning it into a shock-absorbing rock. Roughly two-thirds of the bridge area sits over the former Capital E.

The remaining section of bridge could still be prone to liquefaction in a big quake, as highlighted in reports, but the reality was a quake big enough to cause liquefaction would make “a mess” of the whole area and hinder emergency services, Burrell said. He proposed having a digger permanently parked nearby to quickly clear the road if needed.

He planned to take his plan to the council and raised it at a heated public meeting held last week about the future of the area.

The bridge’s seismic issues have been known of for years.

Council spokesperson Richard MacLean said senior staff met with Burrell on Thursday and his engineers had agreed to share their solution, which would then be independently audited.

“If it’s a viable, affordable and mitigates the safety risks to the public we will present this as one of the options to elected members,” MacLean said.

However, an initial assessment suggested it only only addressed the former Capital E building’s seismic risk, he said.

Pukehīnau/Lambton ward councillor Geordie Rogers was open to the idea assuming it was approved by an independent engineering assessment and “reasonably practicable”.

“Every option is on the table for me, if there’s a cheaper option that allows us to keep the bridge that’s absolutely worth exploring,” he said. “I know that our officers are very welcoming of any ideas and have approached multiple people who raised new ideas.”

Nicola Young, also a city ward councillor, was also open to it.

“I’m not an engineer, but would hope that all serious suggestions would be considered and presented to councillors,” she said. “Councillors are elected to represent Wellingtonians, so we must support exploring all options.”

Council papers show the cost to strengthen the bridge was estimated at $90 million to $120m and would require months of land closures on Jervois Quay.

“Given the significant disruption to the city and high costs, strengthening is not considered a reasonably practicable option,” they say.

The two options being consulted on are demolishing the bridge and building a pedestrian crossing, costing $30m, or demolishing and putting in a bridge and pedestrian crossing at a cost of about $47m.