Council officers funnelled demolition option for City to Sea Bridge, court told

Monday, 28 April 2025

The council decided the City to Sea Bridge should be demolished due to concerns about its earthquake risk and the cost to fix it. (File photo)

Council officers failed to allow creative solutions to be developed for the future of the City to Sea Bridge, a High Court judge has been told.

Interest group Wellington Civic Trust brought a case to the court on Monday to review the process Wellington City Council used to decide to demolish the bridge last December.

The bridge crosses Jervois Quay from Civic Square to the waterfront.

The trust’s lawyer, Tim Smith, said council officers had “funnelled” decision making so that the recommended option was demolition, against “gold-plated” strengthening, with a last-minute mid-level option that the public was not consulted about.

The man who oversaw the building of the Wellington bridge is skeptical Wellington City Council's the projected costings.

It was suggested in court that a systemic problem existed within the council that too much weight was put on the views of the council officers, and the councillors had not done enough decision making, Smith said.

Council officers should not undermine councillors. Councillors needed information about the reasonably practicable options and their strengths and weaknesses, Smith said.

Early on council officers ruled out options based on perceived financial constraints, significance of the bridge, and their view that the bridge needed to be at 100% of new building standard (NBS) for earthquake strengthening, he said.

In 2019 the bridge backdrop looked different before demolition or reconstruction of civic buildings. (File photo)

The seismic strength decision alone rocketed the cost of available options, even though bridges were not included in those requirements.

Part of the bridge support came from the former Capital E building that had a NBS rating of 20% but use and function was crucial to assessing it. The building would be assessed differently if it was not going to be occupied, Smith said.

And there was no sense “gold plating” the bridge if earthquake damage meant the road’s going to be shot, the sea wall gone, and a number of buildings along the quay badly damaged as well, he said.

Jervois Quay traffic zips by under the Para Matchitt artwork on the bridge. (File photo)

It went to the heart of what went wrong with the decision making process that council officers failed to allow creative solutions to be developed despite numerous advising engineers clearly being keen to develop them, he said.

Although the demolition decision was already taken, in the face of trust’s challenge the council undertook not to demolish the bridge in the meantime or dismantle any of the artwork, do anything that would make it more difficult to keep the bridge, or enter into any contract for demolition.

Smith said artwork on the bridge embodied aspects of the story of Māui fishing up the North Island. He called it an icon at the heart of the city’s civic space.

In 2011 artist Para Matchitt, who died in 2021, oversaw repairs to his work on the bridge. (File photo)

At the start of Monday’s hearing, the council’s lawyer, Bridie McKinnon, said the council was concerned about a level of misinformation about the bridge decision.

It was previously reported that the council said to save the 32-year-old bridge and make it structurally sound could cost $90 million to $120m, before a change just before the demolition vote in December took that down to $85m. Partial strengthening could cost $53m.

The council said the bridge would be replaced with a new pedestrian crossing on Jervois Quay, and a new bridge would be considered for funding in a future long-term plan.

Smith had told the judge that the trust said the demolition decision was invalid for reasons that included mistakes of fact and law, and the council not engaging in effective consultation with the public.

Another of the trust’s lawyers, Diana Qiu, said consultation documents suggested to the public that demolition was the only reasonable option, and strengthening wasn’t feasible.

Public consultation on such a significant decision should have been a model of its kind for following the legal principles, she said.

The court hearing continues on Tuesday.