We had an informative and interesting night at our last dinner meeting.
It was great to have the Duckworth’s with us along with Partners Robyn Fox and Meryl Monk.
Our guest speaker for the night was Tom Willets from the Alliance that is constructing the Eastern Busway. Tom is the Owner Interface Manager for an Alliance of entities made up of Auckland Transport along with constructors and designers, Fletcher, ACCIONA, AECOM and Jacobs, and in partnership with mana whenua. Tom is a chartered civil engineer having qualified from Sheffield University in the UK.
The Alliance model as Tom explained is a relatively new approach to major projects where all parties work on the consenting, design and construction stages together rather than at arm’s length. He is a proponent of this collaborative risk sharing model having worked in a similar way in the UK. It takes a long-time and effort to set up but is an efficient way of dealing with issues as they invariably arise in the whole process.
Tom then went on to describe the overall project, the benefits and outcomes and the progress made so far. It is due for completion in 2027 and once complete and integrated with trains from Panmure Station will enable travellers to go from Botany to Britomart in 40 minutes.
During the presentation we got to see the complexity and massive scale of this key $1.4B Auckland infrastructure project and it was great to hear that the project milestones are being achieved on time. If you would like to stay updated go to https://easternbusway.nz/resources/videos
There were plenty of interesting questions from the audience and Colin Monk ably concluded his hosting duties by giving a warm thank you on behalf of all of us.
Our one minutes speakers included David Teape promoting a Rotary Dine Out event to be held on Easter Sunday (see later), Madeleine East reminding us of the RSA’s Poppy Day on the 12th April, Dave Wylie seeking applicants for RYLA and Glenice Yeoman who gave us a description of the photo shoot and start of the of the Bangers to Bluff project from Musick Point Tuesday morning. Our own Team Tercel of Malcom Pascoe and Steve are now well underway. Hopefully we will have some photo updates in due course.
Colin Monk spoke on behalf of Malcolm to thank everyone for their participation is the successful HFW&R project which I later endorsed and thanked Malcolm and the team for a great event.
The raffle results were:
Have A Go – 1st Geoff Thompson, 2nd Pat Abercrombie. New World Vouchers – David Teape and Dave Wylie.
Our next guest speaker on the 8th April is Kelvin Ricketts who will be giving us an update on the activities of the Life Education Trust Counties Manukau.
Take Care and Stay Well,
Rob Mouncey
President
