Suffragette row 'wasted money'

David Rankin

Auckland City chief executive David Rankin has conceded the Khartoum Place suffragette memorial furore was mishandled in the same way as the Vulcan Lane fiasco with too much emphasis on a modern makeover and not enough emphasis on keeping historic features.

Mr Rankin also conceded that council staff had wasted money on the two projects but did not know "how big that will be at the moment".

Documents obtained by the Herald under the Official Information Act show council officers spent $200,000 on consultants and a design competition for Khartoum Place. The process has been scrapped after women's groups, Women's Affairs Minister Lianne Dalziel, four prominent Dames, Mayor Dick Hubbard and his deputy, Dr Bruce Hucker, saved the tiled suffragette centenary mural this week.

Among the costs was a $20,000 bill for judging the competition, including $10,000 for head judge Professor John Hunt and $3000 in travel costs for two Wellington-based judges, Ian Athfield and Megan Wraight.

Last month, fashion leaders got to keep the red pebble pavers in Vulcan Lane after a last-minute bid by council officers to rip them up and replace them with replicas.

Mr Rankin said a report into the consultation processes for Vulcan Lane by his executive team manager, David Walker, and former council director Grant Kirby would also investigate the processes for Khartoum Place.

Mr Rankin commissioned the report after a Herald investigation unearthed documents showing officers repeatedly refused to consider ideas for Vulcan Lane they did not like.

The chief executive admitted last month that senior officers followed the consultation process for Vulcan Lane but paid no attention to the feedback.

Mr Rankin indicated he would only make part of the report public to avoid a "culture of finger pointing" and to allow staff to be forthcoming.

"I have already acknowledged that we could have done better in some aspects of Khartoum Place and Vulcan Lane."

Mr Rankin said the next step for the council was to show the public it could do a better job on the wider $100 million central business district upgrade.

"One of the things for the council to be doing next year is to refocus on the importance of that bigger picture ... I still believe there is very strong public support for the overall project."