$65m to uphold court's dignity

The Government is spending $65.1 million on housing the Supreme Court because the public would not accept cheap accommodation for the country's highest court, Minister for Courts Rick Barker says.

The project - which works out at $13 million a judge - will result in Wellington's historic but long disused old High Court building being restored and a new court building appended to it. Mr Barker said the new Supreme Court was intended to be a heritage building for the future.

"I could have gone and looked for an empty caravan park in Upper Hutt and found some caravans and put them in there," Mr Barker said.

"But let's be frank. Let's be honest about this. This is the Supreme Court of New Zealand, and we need to have a building which befits the dignity and the importance of the Supreme Court of New Zealand.

"To have taken the Supreme Court off to a cheaper place to build it and put it in a building which was essentially wide-span trellises with long-run red corrugated iron and slapped-up precast concrete walls would have been vastly cheaper but I would say to you - and I think the general public would agree - that that would have been a calculated insult to the Supreme Court of New Zealand."

Its five judges currently occupy the lower ground floor of the High Court building. Work on their new two-storey Lambton Quay building is due to start in May for completion in early 2009. It will have a timber-clad courtroom at its heart, and will be surrounded by a bronze screen.

It will be connected at its rear to the old High Court building, one of the first masonry structures in Wellington. Architectural features demolished in the 1950s will be restored to the 1881 building, which will be strengthened to cope with earthquakes.

The Historic Places Trust has welcomed the preservation of the category-one historic place, with chief executive Bruce Chapman calling it an exciting and contemporary solution.

The new building has been designed by Warren and Mahoney.

Restoration of the old High Court building is estimated at $25.3 million, and the new building is expected to cost $39.8 million.

Site clearance starts in March.