November 1 deadline to have Transmission Gully opened to region's eager drivers

Tuesday, 25 February 2020

The line in the asphalt for one of the most long-sought roads in New Zealand has been revealed.

Transmission Gully must be opened by November 1, the New Zealand Transport Agency has confirmed.

If not open by November 1 then the private consortium tasked with building the four-lane road, the Wellington Gateway Partnership, can be stung with $16,000-a-day penalties.

Another flyover image of work on Transmission Gully from December 2019.

An agency spokeswoman said if the road was still not opened by December 18 then WGP could face a $10 million deduction under a new settlement.

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Photos of the progress on Transmission Gully taken in December 2019

The original date for opening Transmission Gully was April 30, 2020, then the agency granted a time extension to May 20, she said.

This month the NZTA announced the road would still be opened in 2020, but now 'before Christmas'.

A Transmission Gully bridge takes shape, in September, 2019, despite delays in the overall project.

The opening would come just a shade over a century since the first publicly recorded discussions of the need for a new inland road connecting Wellington to the north, reported in the Evening Post in 1919.

Under the new settlement, the agency agreed to pay road builder CPB HEB JV an additional $190m and reset the clock on the opening date - wiping potentially millions of dollars of penalties for not meeting previous deadlines. The $16,000 daily rate comes to about $496,000 a month.

The spokeswoman said December's potential $10m deduction, however, was specific to the new settlement.

Previously the agency confirmed the cost to build the road with the new payment was now $1.041 billion - up from $850m.

Earlier this month, NZTA's previous chief executive, Mark Ratcliffe, said the road's builder had incurred significant additional costs due to natural events such as storms and the Kaikōura earthquake.

Ratcliffe said the site's challenging conditions had impacted the construction. 'The project required an increased earthworks programme, creating further complexity, disruption and cost to the project through the additional consent requirements.'

As part of the settlement, CPB HEB JV's historic claims against WGP and NZTA were resolved without resorting to court action, which would have resulted in further costs and delays to the project, the agency said.

WGP is a group of private financiers and contractors who will design, construct, finance and then operate and maintain the new motorway for the 25 years following the construction period. NZTA is not part of WGP.

Construction began in 2015 on the 27 kilometre-long road, connecting Linden in north Wellington to just north of Paekākāriki on the Kāpiti Coast.