The Tararua Alliance team marked 10 years last month at the offices at Oringi, near Dannevirke. With Mayor Tracey Collis, councillors, representatives from Iwi and Horizons regional council and Alliance staff.
The Tararua Alliance team marked 10 years last month at the offices at Oringi, near Dannevirke. With Mayor Tracey Collis, councillors, representatives from Iwi and Horizons regional council and Alliance staff.
In September 2014 a roading team was created that has been a constant for the Tararua community for a decade and Tararua Alliance marked the 10th birthday at their office based at Oringi.
Tararua Alliance engineering services manager Ray Cannon, who has been with Tararua District Council since 1998, was managing a team in the council’s engineering services department in Woodville at the time.
In September of that year, the council put the roading work out to tender for a five-year contract, which was won by Downer.
“I remember their presentation – they were the only ones who brought the people along who would actually be doing the work,” Ray says.
“There were about eight people from Downer and a handful of council staff and the roading office was in the old Telecom building in Woodville.”
A table was set up in the U-shaped building and they all worked off that table, he says.
“That was the start of the Alliance.”
Signing the contract in 2014. Back from left, Blair King then chief executive of the Tararua District Council and Frank Aldridge, of the Integral Group Ltd, consultants for the negotiations. Front, then Tararua District mayor Roly Ellis and Cos Bruyn, the chief executive of Downer NZ Ltd.
They later moved into the Scanpower building at Oringi, which had just been built, and later into the building they now occupy, Ray says.
He’s seen a lot of change in engineering, especially now with drones and GPS surveys.
“There’s a lot more data now that’s being used to make decisions. The challenge we face is we have such a huge area and managing the money to keep the key areas moving.”
Hamish Featonby, who is now the council’s manager of infrastructure, was an asset engineer at Downer in 2014.
He says the focus then was bringing the district up to the rest of the industry.
“Ten years on, the CCNZ award the team won recently shows we have not only caught up, we’ve overtaken.”
He says the Alliance has given the council the ability to change when policies have changed, as well as the stability to do what needs to be done on the roads.
“For maintenance contracts that aren’t set up as an Alliance model, every time there’s a change in government direction contractors are doing variations and the costs go up. We have been able to avoid that.”
Hamish says one thing that sets Alliance apart is self-reflection and constant improvements with the focus on “how can we do this better and add more value for the community?”
“A lot of the roading team are locals and you really feel that when there’s an emergency. You’ve got local people looking after local roads and when there’s an emergency they want to look after their community.”
