Wellington's City to Sea bridge designed by Rewi Thompson and John Gray with sculptor Para Matchitt. Photo: Paul McCredie
A senior urban designer has taken a swing at Wellington City councillors, claiming they are "hell-bent" on demolishing an iconic bridge and consultation on its fate is skewed.
Wellington's City to Sea Bridge is facing demolition after a seismic assessment labelled it an earthquake risk and the council deemed the price tag for strengthening it too high.
However, despite council staff recommending demolition of the bridge and public consultation on its future only offering that option, a Wellington City Council spokesperson said a decision on the bridge's future was yet to be made.
When asked about the bridge's fate on Morning Report, mayor Tory Whanau said: "That's going", before hastily correcting herself, saying consultation had only just finished and a decision would be made in the next couple of weeks.
Councillors met on Tuesday to find hundreds of millions of savings in the city's long-term plan after the council decided not to sell its 34 percent stake in Wellington Airport.
While some projects survived the cull, notably the $113m Golden Mile proposal, other projects - such as those in the council's civic revitalisation plan which includes the City to Sea Bridge were yet to be decided on.
Urban designer Stuart Niven told Nine to Noon that public consultation on the City to Sea Bridge should have included an option to keep it, and claimed "the council mindset seems to be ... hell-bent to destroy it".
Niven, who has 40 years experience in city planning, admitted the civic centre network, which includes the City to Sea Bridge and adjoining former Capital E building (also earthquake-prone), needed work, but it was not beyond repair.
He said the bridge had the important purpose of connecting public spaces in the CBD and the harbour and he strongly opposed demolition.
He claimed public consultation on the bridge's future was botched, and maintained information to help people make submissions amounted to a "lottery of advice".
"I have never seen a more skewed document in my life ... it forced people to make decisions that were not clear.
"The option that the public were not given was whether to keep the existing bridge. That decision had already been made and we were not invited to have an opinion about that."
Public consultation on Te Ngākau Precinct Development Plan closed on 13 November and asked two key questions: 'What to prioritise for the remaining development of the precinct?', and 'What should replace the City to Sea Bridge?'
The proposals for the City to Sea Bridge included two options, replacing it with a pedestrian crossing for $30m or a pedestrian crossing and a new bridge for $47m.
The council said it had not included an option to strengthen the City to Sea Bridge because of the "high cost of strengthening and the disruption to Jervois Quay, a key transport and emergency route".
It said the estimated cost to strengthen the bridge and remediate the former Capital E site was $90m-$120m.
Following the end of public consultation on the precinct, Stuff reported 80 submitters were against either option for the City to Sea Bridge and opposed demolition entirely, 17 said they supported building a new bridge with an accompanying pedestrian crossing, and 14 wanted to get rid of the bridge entirely and replace it with a new crossing.
A decision on the future of the bridge will be made at the Environment and Infrastructure Committee on 5 December.
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