Love those councils

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I have a friend who helps me, (and others), with finding property and processing subdivisions in Wellington and the lower north island. He has been involved in a large town recently and was assisting the owner in getting things moving forward as it was taking longer than originally anticipated.

That is par for the course in Auckland but apparently in this town things normally go more according to plan.

Anyway things had ground to a halt with the driveway crossing so my mate set out to discover why.

It transpires that when the contractors went to break out the berm to put the driveway crossing in they discovered wires. Further investigation made it apparent that they were live wires!!

Turns out the council contractors had basically laid live wires to either a traffic light or a street light by running them straight under the berm concrete, no protection, no correct installation, just lie them on the ground and concrete over them ~ she’ll be right!!

So the council has stopped all work on the site till they decide what to do!!

What can we learn from this??

1. Councils apparently don’t have any inspections for their own work and employees
2. Never assume anything is so stupid or dangerous that no one could possibly have done it.
3. Councils can cause you excessive costs and delays even when the problem has been caused by them.

I can see it now, 5 guys leaning on shovels and 1 guy standing with a reel of cable.
“Where shall I put this?” he asks.
“Aw just shove it on there man and we’ll get the 9 guys who turn up in the concrete truck just to pour over it”
“Isn’t that a bit dangerous?”
“Man it’s 8:35, we’re late for smoko. It’ll be fine, who will ever know once the concrete hardens”

Stay Safe Dean Letfus @ www.massiveaction.co.nz (AKA Dean Leftus @ www.massiveaction.co.nz)

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