Stadium meeting may be last play in grim contest

The scheduled meeting of the Dunedin City Council on Monday - thrown into disarray last night by Stop the Stadium's application for a High Court injunction - could still yet be the final play of five years of angry debate, allegation, claim and counter-claim over the city's proposed stadium.

The plan for the meeting was for the city's 15 elected representatives to vote on whether to agree to a construction contract that would see building begin.

• Injunction threat hits stadium 

The contract negotiated with main contractor Hawkins Construction has been tabled, with a $655,000 increase in the cost to $130,414, 595, but a transfer of some of the risk from the city to Hawkins.

And Dunedin City Council chief executive Jim Harland made it clear yesterday - before news broke of the injunction notice - there was no going back if the decision was in favour of signing.

"If the council makes a formal decision to sign the contract, Mayor Peter Chin signs and Hawkins sign, we're on the journey. That's where we're going."

Stadium opponent Cr Dave Cull said he would be voting against the project because of wider issues, but admitted the Carisbrook Stadium Trust "haven't done a bad job", and if the risk of a price blow-out was limited by the contract it could only be a good thing.

"I think they've worked pretty hard to reduce the risks that were there."

The agenda for an extraordinary meeting of the council, scheduled to start in private at 9am and move into public after 11am, has one item: The construction contract for the proposed Forsyth Barr Stadium at the University Plaza.

The public part of the agenda includes a 23-page report, but Mr Harland said the detailed contract ran to 115 pages.

The contract includes a handover date of August 1, 2011, little more than a month before the Rugby World Cup starts.

Mayor Peter Chin, also speaking earlier yesterday, agreed the meeting would be the final decision - but with some prescience said: "There's no way I can second guess what will happen between now and the meeting, or what will happen at the meeting".

The private part of the meeting would discuss commercially sensitive areas, including the contractor's profit margin. But Mr Chin promised as much information as possible would be made public when the public was allowed in.

• The stadium contract

Guaranteed maximum price contract: $130,414,595
Professional costs: $25,603,540
Adjusted sums: $7,994,000
Sub total: $164,012,045
Contingency funding: $1,387,865
Total: $165,400,000