Contracts now in force

With new maintenance contracts now in force for Auckland’s parks, buildings and open spaces, as of July 1, the Hibiscus & Bays Local Board is engaged in working out key ‘community and workforce measures’ for this area, to focus on in the first year of the contracts.

Among the issues that the local board has indicated are a priority are reduced use of chemical weedkiller, sub-contracting to local suppliers and the ability for local youth support groups to get involved.

At last month’s local board meeting, it was noted that there is a section in the contract containing targets for beach grooming – the local board is investigating to ascertain whether this service will be provided locally. However, chair Julia Parfitt says it is likely that beach grooming will only be carried out in areas of Auckland where it has been done in the past.

Local board member David Cooper also pointed out that the contracts divide town centres into different categories, each of which has different maintenance standards and frequencies of clean ups. These are: CBD town centres and town centres outside CBDs with very high-high traffic/use or moderate-low traffic/use, followed by minor shopping centres.

A key change to the contracts is that most service levels will now be outcome based, as opposed to frequency based – the example given by Council is that the standard will now be ‘rubbish bins shall not exceed the bin’s capacity and items shall not overflow’ as opposed to “bins are emptied once a day’.

Last April, Auckland Council announced a list of new suppliers, which include City Care, Urban Maintenance Systems and Ventia (parks, open spaces and building maintenance), Wildlands (restoration, biodiversity and pest control) and Treescape (tree maintenance, restoration, biodiversity and pest control).

The new contracts cover the whole Auckland region, but are structured in service areas aligned with local board boundaries.

It is expected that the new contracts could take up to 12 months to fully bed in.