'Gone too far': Wellington Water traffic management under fire

A Wellington councillor is calling out what she claims are over-the-top Wellington Water road traffic management measures during pipe repairs, which are driving up the costs of minor works.

Andrea Compton shared an email to Wellington Water and Wellington City Council on Facebook in which she encouraged a review into traffic management practices.

As a recent example, she cited repair works at Tawa Terrace in Tawa, where she said a small leak from a valve a couple of metres from the kerb had led to three sets of temporary traffic signals and three traffic management staff onsite over about a kilometre of road.

Wellington Water said the level of traffic management was appropriate for the site and it adhered to standards.

It added that new codes of practice would be rolled out by councils across the country from next month.

Compton said there might be "opportunities to adopt simpler traffic management arrangements that continue to provide an appropriate level of safety, while reducing cost, disruption and resource requirements".

Compton told RNZ the council needed to re-evaluate its risk appetite when managing construction on roads.

"We've gone too far in terms of mitigation of risk for minor works."

With water bills set to "skyrocket", she wanted Wellington Water - or new entity Tiaki Wai, which takes over the city's water assets from July - to look at its cost structure and ways to reduce expenses.

Wellingtonians will pay an average of $2390 this coming financial year for their water bills to Tiaki Wai - a 13.3 percent increase to the average $2100 currently included in council rates.

In her post, Compton said these highly visible traffic management measures fuelled concerns about cost-effectiveness at a time when there was higher scrutiny around public spending.

She told RNZ she was emailed weekly by Wellingtonians concerned about the council "overengineering solutions to essentially minor works".

A Wellington Water spokesperson said it had accessed the road corridor under standards set and required by the council.

"In this instance, traffic management was required to repair a leak on Tawa Terrace. As the work was located on the Tawa Terrace/Bartlett Grove intersection, visibility for road users is limited.

"The traffic management plan used was approved by council, as the road controlling authority for works in this type of road environment.

"From 1 July, all councils are moving to a different national code of practice for traffic management, which replaces the current prescribed standards and allows for a risk-based approach."

Wellington City Council said the urgent water repair in question had not needed council approval for traffic-control arrangements. It said the works were at an intersection, which heightened the need for traffic control.

The council declined to respond to questions about systematic, disproportionate traffic control measures for works.