Water-main cost ‘very interesting’

Press, Issue 33844, 16 May 1975, Page 8

Water-main cost ‘very interesting’

The Rangiora Borough Council cannot be certain of making large savings by laying a new water main, but the final cost of the job will be “very interesting,” the chairman of the Canterbury'-West Coast branch of the Contractors’ Federation (Mr G. Vickers) has said.

Mr Vickers was commenting, in a statement, on a report that the council planned to lay the main itself because of what it considered a lack of competitive tendering for the job. The seven tenders ranged from $43,637 to $168,868, as against an estimate of $29,000.

But the estimate was based on a Nelson tender of a year ago, Mr Vickers said, and he denied that the tenders were not competitive. Not all the items were included in the estimate, and there were three tenders between $40,000 and $50,000. The lowest had been recommended as realistic by the consulting engineers (Messrs H. G. Royds, Sutherland and McLeay), Mr Vickers said.

He understood that the comment about the lack of competitive tendering made by the consulting engineers had referred to the top two tenders, at least one of which was submitted by an inexperienced firm. It could be said that the two top prices were unrealistic, Mr Vickers said, but if the result was more contractors entering the field and gradually learning to tender

accurately, even these were worth while.

If the council costed the job accurately, making allowance for overheads and for future replacement of the machinery involved, the final cost would prove “very interesting.”