engineering services in the queenstown lakes district

Duncan Field, chief executive of the Queenstown Lakes District Council, and Trevor Tattersfield, chairman of Lakes Engineering Limited, today announced that the council had asked them to produce a formal proposal to bring council employees and the staff of Lakes Engineering together into one new entity. All of the staff in the new entity would be directly employed by council.

Lakes Engineering Ltd is wholly owned by council. It manages engineering maintenance and project manages many of the Council capital projects for roading, water and sewerage. Council staff ensures that the $600M roading, utilities and waste assets are managed in the long term interest of the community and that investment in new projects is well planned and delivered.

The council expected that its total operating and capital expenditure in 2009 on roading, water, sewerage and waste would total approximately $58M.
Both Mr Field and Mr Tattersfield acknowledged that since the establishment of the current company in 2007 there were frustrations on both sides about achieving the necessary clarity of roles between the two organisations.
“This group of people needs to be one team working together for the communities of Queenstown Lakes and unfortunately both organisations find ourselves tripping over the complexities of the relationship between Council and the CCO,” Mr Tattersfield said.

“Shortening the lines of communication should improve the timeliness of work, reduce the cost of engineering services, and improve the experience of people who need council input to their projects,” he said.

Mr Field emphasised that this is a new entity that needs to be developed from the strengths of the in house engineering department and the company. “It is not a takeover of one by the other,” he said.

“When we spoke to the Lakes Engineering staff this morning we made it very clear that we wanted them all to remain and that these changes should make their jobs more interesting and rewarding,” Mr Tattersfield said.
Both men acknowledged that the request made by council was the first stage in a transition that needed to be carefully managed.
The two organisations were now setting up a joint working party, that would begin to define the organisation structure of the new entity, the timelines for implementing it, and the changes that would need to be made in arrangements and policies as a result.