Sandy Calkin. Photo: Supplied / NZ Police
Wellington City Council says progress in developing and implementing lighting and safety protection for the city's waterfront promenade is moving at "incredible haste and pace".
But it could be more than three years before plans to install balustrades along the nearly 4km of wharf - where fall hazards have been identified - become reality.
Funding for more than $4 million to complete the project is also yet to be approved.
The council was testifying on the second day of the coroner's inquest into the death of 30-year-old Sandy Calkin who drowned after being last seen walking on Queens Wharf in July 2021.
Teacher Isaac Levings also died after falling into water along the promenade in the years following Calkin's death.
Waterfront and city parks manager Shane Binnie said the historic rate of a person dying "every 1.7 years on the waterfront" was not acceptable.
Counsel assisting the coroner Josh Shaw. Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
Funding for safety upgrades not assured
Binnie assured the coroner - and members of Calkin's family in attendance - that the young man's death was at the forefront of the council's minds as they worked through the process to upgrade the safety of the area.
He said he could only say "up to a point" that the additional $4m of funding - on top of the original $6m set aside in 2023 - would be approved by the council.
Binnie confirmed additional lighting to be mounted on the Shed Five building had been approved, ordered and would soon be installed.
"The pre-wiring has already taken place so as soon as they arrive they'll be put up," Binnie said.
Six additional nine-metre poles would light the remainder of the route heading northwards on top of several trial lights already in place, Binnie said.
But he said the installing of edge protection along nearly 4km of the wharf - identified as presenting fall hazards - would still be at least three years away.
Binnie said the completion of that process would have to include resource consenting, funding approval and any final council decisions on the matter.
"Under that is the extensive amount of detailed design, manufacturing and preparing the waterfront for edge protection" Binnie said.
Binnie said barriers about voids in the wharf near Shed Five - where Calkin was likely to have gone into the water - represented the most practical solution to bolster the safety of the route along the waterfront promenade.
Coroner Katharine Greig. Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
Council's reporting systems under fire
Under questioning from counsel assisting the coroner Josh Shaw, Binnie agreed - while the means were available to report safety hazards or incidents via the council's website - the system appeared to be less about safety than faults which needed to be fixed.
"What sits behind the tool is perfectly acceptable but I would agree that the user experience is not adequate for that kind of problem," Binnie said.
The discussion took place in light of the previous day's revelation that a council document listing 13 waterfront incidents over seven years failed to include five deaths in the area - including Calkin's.
Waterfront framework emphasises openness over safety
Architect, urban designer and technical advisory group chairperson Graeme McIndoe said that safety of the waterfront had been a constant priority in the approach to the development of the area since the Wellington Waterfront Framework was devised in 2001.
But he agreed with Shaw that the discussion of safety within the advisory group had ramped up considerably in recent years with nearly 40 percent of mentions of safety measures in nearly two decades of the group's minutes occurring in the last two years.
He also conceded that the framework itself - which was reviewed in 2011 - included only one specific reference to public safety - other than one of seven overarching objectives to ensure "the waterfront is, and is perceived to be, safe at all times".
McIndoe agreed with Shaw's suggestion that the framework's repeated expression of the desirability of open spaces connecting the city to the sea had contributed to a reluctance to install barriers over the years and said those priorities had shifted in the years following Calkin's death.
He said he favoured a solution of partial balustrading which would maintain berthing access and connectivity to the sea but ensure safety in identified areas of risk.
"From a design perspective we should be aiming for openness and connection and safety. I think we can achieve all those things."
The inquest is set to continue until the end of the week.