Ponsonby footpath paved with gold

The overall cost is nearly four times the average $286 a metre [for] 2006-07. The Auckland City Council has paid $625,603 to renew 617m of footpath at Lincoln St in Ponsonby at a cost of $1000 a metre.

About $150,000 of the cost involved excavating and removing bluestone blocks, a Herald inquiry has found.

The overall cost - nearly four times the average $286 a metre footpath renewal cost in 2006-2007- is the latest in a series of Herald revelations that have led the Auditor-General to hold an inquiry into the management of the council's footpath contracts.

Among other things, the Herald has revealed alleged overpayments to John Fillmore Contractors, important documents missing from council files and a member of a tender evaluation panel accepting a ham at a Christmas party hosted by successful tenderer John Fillmore Contractors.

John Fillmore, whose company has been awarded about $120 million worth of footpath contracts since 2004, has welcomed an independent investigation.

When council officers visited Lincoln St with the Herald yesterday, footpath programme manager David Dick said it was normal practice for the blocks to be excavated, not cleaned, thrown on the back of a truck and taken to a depot where they were of little use. Council contractor administrator Peter Martin thought this was not necessarily the case and the blocks might get cleaned.

The blocks are the bluestone pitchstones that form the channel at right angles to kerbstones.

John Fillmore Contractors was paid about $65 a metre to excavate, clean and deliver four rows of pitchstones, totalling 2286m, to a council depot - a total of about $150,000.

The contractor was paid a further $218,000 for other kerb and channel working, including reinstating bluestone kerbstones; and $256,899 to renew the footpath and vehicle crossing. All up, the footpath renewal in January 2007 cost $625,603.

Transport general manager Don Munro has not provided the Herald with any council documents for Lincoln St, other than a claim summary.

Details of the council work programme and a performance checklist were requested four weeks ago. Answers have varied from the scoping information not being available in hard copy and some information being missing to footpath documents being under "lock and key" by the Auditor-General.

LINCOLN ST - THE COSTS

Kerb and channel: $368,704 (including $150,000 to remove pitchstones)

Footpath: $256,899

Total cost: $625,603

Cost per metre: $1000

Average cost per metre in 2006-07: $286