1 Several years ago Julia and I visited Olympia - the site of the original Olympic games. I was taken with the half dozen statues at the entrance. The statues are not of winners but of those caught cheating. If caught cheating, not only did you get a statue raised in your name, you were also ostracized from your village and destined to wander aimlessly for the rest of your hopeless life.
2 When Wellington decides to adopt this time honoured best practice, I would like a statue to be erected in the name of this bus shelter on Thorndon Quay. Not only is it a “cheat”. it is also undoubtedly the worst piece of civil engineering undertaken in this town in living memory.
3 Firstly, it used to reside under the shelter of the motorway and, on a wet southerly day, your gold card didn’t get soggy while you waited for the bus to arrive. Now it has been moved out into the open,fully exposed to the southerly. Secondly, and more importantly, it has been built on top of the 110 year old main sewer that runs through Wellington. This cannot be best practice. It can’t even be an acceptable practice. There are 8 major water mains that run under this road - it is our SH1 for pipes.
4 Wellington Water sent WCC a memo stating that certain works must be done as part of this roading project. On May 9th 2024, there was a meeting between the WCC project team and TQ business people. An officer admited this memo had been received and  dealt with . Siobhan Procter was at that meeting but last week  she told Tom Hunt from The Post, that WCC had no knowledge of the WW advice. I note that Siobhan has tendered her resignation this week. 
5 In the lead up to the last election the National Party advised that, if elected they would close the LGWM project, but they would continue any contracts that had been signed. I believe  Council Officers asked the Mayor to sign the “Downer” contract, in haste,  knowing that there was an issue with the underlying pipes, in order to beat the election timeline. In doing so, they have compromised the Office of The Mayor and caused massive damage to Thorndon Quay businesses. If I was Mayor Whanau, I would be extremely annoyed. This has clearly been “a cheat”. 
6 When we build our statue of the bus shelter, who should we have sitting inside? I had thought of having Ms McKerrow and Ms Procter holding a $180m cheque (this being the amount bungled on LGWM), but decided that wouldn’t be appropriate - the banks no longer issue cheques.
7 If you haven’t already, please sign the petition that calls for a halt to this project whilst an independent review is carried out. The link is:- https://lnkd.in/gCVwpgeP  . And, if you see fit, please repost. We must get some accountability around this shambles.