Mayor Demanding Answers After CCTV Project Stalls

The Invercargill Mayor has taken over the lead role on the CCTV project after it was revealed this week it was actually still only at the concept stage.

Councillors had been led to believe stage one of the system would be up and running in the CBD by Christmas – at a stretch, but this was no longer the case.
Related: 90 Seconds+ with Invercargill City Mayor Nobby Clark – CCTV Budget Blowout/Wachner Place

The Finance and Projects Committee heard on Monday from Mayor Nobby Clark that he’d removed the previous commitee and the project had been stalled.

“This is not a reflection on them but on our internal dynamics,” he said.

The project was initially budgeted at $800,000 but had increased to $1.1 million, and on his estimates it would now be more likely $2.3 million and take five years to roll out completely.

“This is a disaster for us and we have lost a lot of community faith in this, and I’ll have to front a meeting next week to explain why we don’t have the cameras in December.”

The project had been moved from the Invercargill City Council’s infrastructure team to its Project Management Office – led by Lee Butcher.

Lee had been working with Safer Cities on the project and said they had been deficient and let his team down, as there was still largely no understanding of the network capability for the 133 cameras.

Councillor Ian Pottinger had done his own investigation and talked to an industry expert who could come and peer review the project for $5000, and produce a proper system design.

There were still too many assumptions with the project, including whether police would be funding part of it, and Lee said while Safer Cities had already come up with a system design, “what we don’t have is the detail of that.”

“We have limited information about our network so we can then take it out to the market.”

The commitee agreed to engage the industry expert while still allowing the project management team (PMO) to continue the work, so there weren’t any further delays.

Mayor Clark said he was still not comfortable with the advice he has had from staff, “ I think the buck has been passed from infrastructure to the PMO and I don’t know who to believe anymore.”

Lee said he would be meeting with local police next week, who had also connected with a Christchurch police team that had experience in CCTV systems.

“We’re climbing into this – into the weeds of this,” he said.

“Safer Cities has got this all wrong – we have to be able to connect it all up,” he said.