Description: water2

Media Release

5 October 2012

Central Plains to begin detailed design of Canterbury irrigation scheme

Central Plains Water (CPW) is set to begin detailed design of the $100 million first stage of its Canterbury irrigation scheme following confirmation of loan funding from Selwyn District Council.

Derek Crombie, CPW general manager said that Selwyn District Council’s $5 million loan contribution towards developing the scheme has secured its viability, and is hoped to be backed by equal funding from the Government’s Irrigation Acceleration Fund, an announcement about which is expected later this month.

As a result CPW has formed an alliance with Solid Energy to jointly project manage the first stage of the irrigation scheme, taking the project through the design and land procurement stages up to thestart of construction.

The Stage 1 construction programme will be worth approximately $100 million, and will use Solid Energy’s proven abilities in planning and project management, with a team that can start work immediately. Future stages of the scheme will be developed on a similar model once the first stage is under way.

Crombie said that being able to tap into such a reservoir of knowledge locally would mean considerable savings, both in time and money, for the project.

“Originally we were looking at establishing our own project team, - probably with support from a national consulting company. This alliance is a win-win. We utilise the resources that we have here in Canterbury, the investment stays here in Canterbury, and we can get up and running much sooner than expected. Some external specialist skills will still be engaged to supplement the services available from Solid Energy.

“We believe, that this relationship will allow us to take a year off the end delivery of irrigation to the scheme. We plan to have bulldozers on the ground in a year’s time, the first “test phase” completed by October 2014 and have the whole Stage I scheme fully running by February 2015,” he said.

Crombie said that one of his great concerns in recent times had been around getting the quality and number of designers and contractors for the first building stage in what will probably be an “over-heated” construction market.

“This relationship will give us such a good start that by early next year we can finalise contracts and timelines for Stage I and follow that into later stages of the Irrigation scheme.

“For our shareholders and Funders, who have supported this scheme for over a decade, this is incredibly good news,” he said.

Solid Energy Group Manager ExternalAffairs, Bill Luff, said Solid Energy believed that there was a very good fit between the two companies and that this agreement was also good news for a number of Solid Energy technical staff, who could now be retained by the company to work on the first phase of the irrigation project.

“The impact of Solid Energy’s current reorganisation on our staff is well known. Solid Energy has been very active in identifying opportunities that would allow us to retain staff or to provide alternative employment. We’re really pleased that we’ve reached this agreement and we hope that we can deliver some other opportunities for more of our affected staff in the near future. “
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