Contracts and New In House Team from Today

Today marks day one of a new Queenstown Lakes District Council family with four new contracts and a new ‘in house’ team working for the community, QLDC Mayor Clive Geddes said.

“We have been working towards July 1, 2008 for four years. The date holds huge significance for the council and its communities and signals a new level of service,” Mr Geddes said.

From today the new ‘in house’ horticultural team, including gardeners and town custodians for Wanaka, Queenstown and Arrowtown reported for the first day of work.

It was also the first day of new contracts with the council for: Lakes Environmental (council controlled organisation delivering planning and regulatory); Dunstan Sprayers (plant and animal pest control); United Water (water services operation and maintenance) and Asplundh (parks and reserve maintenance and tree services).

A fifth contract for cleaning public toilets was being re-tendered.

“It is particularly worth highlighting that yesterday the previous contract with CivicCorp came to an end. From today Lakes Environmental is operating under a new contract,’ Mr Geddes said.

With the advent of the new contracts, Mr Geddes said the community could feel buoyed that service would improve.

“We have been through a very tough, very lengthy process of reviewing what levels of service we have been offering and how we should improve that service,” he said.

The new contracts spread right across council activities.

“There can be no doubt that this is a milestone day,” Mr Geddes said.

While the council was looking ahead to the future, it was also important to acknowledge the hard work of various individuals who had served the community and the council extremely well in the delivery of previous contracts.

“I would like to extend my thanks to those people,” Mr Geddes said.

Contracts for the delivery of: road maintenance (Downer EDI Works); council property management (Lakes Property Services); harbourmaster services (Southern Monitoring Services) and Lakes Hayes water services (Fulton Hogan) will continue.