Progress on rebuilding Christchurch's vital infrastructure is progressing well compared to similar efforts after Hurricane Katrina and the devastating earthquakes in Haiti and Japan. Gibb attributes this to the Christchurch rebuild being the most highly insured and underwritten recovery in the world.
Work in the CBD is set to ramp up once again, with 45 crews set to be operating by April, with a goal to finish in the central city by mid-2015 to clear the way for the major anchor projects.
Gibb acknowledges decision-making slowed down due to changes in the membership of the Christchurch City Council following the recent local body elections. He predicts the September general election will also have an impact. "My experience in Australia was that if there were any key decisions that needed to be made at a governance level - and they weren't made before an election - they shut down for months, especially if there's a change of government."
One of Scirt's focuses is ensuring its work doesn't overly disrupt traffic within the central city so access can be maintained to businesses. It works closely with with CTOC - the Combined Traffic Operations Centre put together by Christchurch City Council, NZTA and Environment Canterbury to manage city traffic.
Using Australian guidelines, SCIRT has also produced value reports enabling the project to be compared with a range of other comparable overseas initiatives to track progress.
Says Gibb: "What it does is it gives us a benchmark. In Australia there are a number of $2 billion-$3 billion projects or programmes, which have been delivered under this value method. If we're reporting under the same framework they use, we can look at what we're achieving compared with what they are and see how we're performing."
Scirt's work has been recognised by the United Kingdom Institution of Civil Engineers, which awarded it the Brunel Medal for Engineering Excellence last year. The award recognizes outstanding civil engineering achievements and contribution to the profession. Previously the medal has been awarded to just one other Southern Hemisphere civil engineering group, from Seoul. SCIRT was subsequently asked to provide a series of lectures on its achievements. Gibb is part-way through producing a paper and will give the first lecture in London this June.
"This collaborative arrangement which involves the public and the private sectors and focuses strongly on the community is a great framework and model," he says. "At the moment we're exploring what they might look like and if there is an opportunity to craft or prepare a framework with the learnings we've had from this experience."
"The 30 years that I've been in the construction industry, this is the absolute highlight and is going to be very difficult to follow up. This is a city that was on its knees and we've been able to do our bit to help them get back on their feet."
Getting Stronger
The Stronger Christchurch Infrastructure Rebuild Team (Scirt) is an alliance of five major contractors set up to repair and rebuild the city's earthquake-damaged roads, fresh water, waste water and stormwater networks.
There are three phases to the infrastructure recovery:
Emergency response and humanitarian relief - making buildings safe and ensuring essential services are restored.
Early recovery - where severely damaged parts of the network are fixed so that they can at least function.
Recovery - where the network is operational and there is a planned prioritisation for projects required to fix the remaining damage.
