Three Invercargill capital projects have been “red-tagged” by the city council’s new Programme Management Office, with staff saying the timing and resourcing of the projects is “critical”.

The Invercargill City Council’s new Programme Management Office was established in February to help the council deliver a testing 10-year capital works programme, with projects ranging from $1 million to more than $50 million.

The “red-tagged” projects are Streetscapes ($20 million), the historic Invercargill Water Tower ($1.37 million) and the Southland Museum and Art Gallery ($56 million).

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The council’s risk and assurance committee, chaired by independent chairman Bruce Robertson, today received a report by the office’s interim programme manager Tess Browne and infrastructure group manager Erin Moogan, who made it clear the council’s 10-year capital development programme “will not only test this council’s capacity to deliver significant construction projects but will also significantly reshape the way in which we deliver to the community”.

The Streetscapes project concerns were around making sure everything was scheduled properly to prevent work being ripped up in 10 years’ time, Ms Moogan said.

The museum and art gallery project would be a big and reasonably complex project to get moving, because it still had to go through community consultation and there were competing expectations around the scope of the development, she said.

The water tower project was challenging because of its category 1 heritage status, which would create demands on resourcing and the need to find the right contractor.

Ms Moogan said the projects had been scored “quite toughly”. 

The picture had improved since the list had been drawn up but, she wanted to be clear that the programme was “very difficult and tight”.

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Deputy mayor Nobby Clark said a lot of work and forward planning had gone into the capital works programme, the financials and the ability to deliver it.

The committee had earlier discussed the tight time frame for getting the next 10-year long term plan through the council process by the June 30 deadline.

One of the key issues Cr Clark had was the time frame for that public consultation, after which the council would have about a month to audit the final long term plan.

“Our ability to change it is just about zero,” he said.

The “big elephant in the room is the new museum . . . That’s pushed out in the long term plan and I am not sure we have community acceptance on that,” Cr Clark said.

Cr Clark added he was not sure, process-wise, that the council had got it right, because the community had signalled in August last year what it wanted in way of project prioritisation.

Ms Moogan said the challenge of running the Programme Management Office was to adapt to change and run across more than one long term plan. If something did change in the long term plan, then the office would adjust the programme.

Cr Ian Pottinger said the decision what to do first was no different to deciding how to look after your own house.

“Why would you go buy a new lounge suite when you’ve got a hole in the roof and the wind is blowing through. It’s just crazy.”

The committee was there to decide what to do first and it was “a no-brainer” that the Streetscapes, Stead St stop banks ($14.4 million) and Three Water renewals (no budget listed yet) had to take priority, Cr Pottinger said.

The Programme Management Office’s list of significant, strategic construction projects also includes Anderson House ($1.2 million), CAB Refurbishment ($15.8 million) and Health Homes ($1.35 million). It also lists a $10 million contingency.