Health New Zealand Te Whatu Ora (HNZ) interim national director of infrastructure David Warburton yesterday confirmed Blake Lepper had resigned from his role as head of infrastructure delivery to pursue "a new professional opportunity".
He will leave his present role in mid-November.
"We thank Blake for his excellent contribution to Health New Zealand’s infrastructure projects and wish him well in his future ventures.
"We have yet to appoint a replacement for Blake’s role."
As head of infrastructure, Mr Lepper was effectively in charge of the $1.8 billion new Dunedin hospital inpatients building project when he was appointed in March last year, but his role was sidelined after Health Minister Simeon Brown reappointed Evan Davies as Crown manager and Tony Lloyd as project director in June this year.
Both had been involved earlier in the project, albeit in different roles.
Mr Brown and Infrastructure Minister Chris Bishop confirmed to the Otago Daily Times in July that Mr Davies and Mr Lloyd were now in charge of the project.
Mr Lepper’s time at the new Dunedin hospital project was fraught, coinciding with the government ordering a shutdown in September last year as it deliberated over whether to go ahead with a scaled-back version of the inpatients building or an upgrade of the existing Dunedin Hospital.
In January, Mr Brown announced the government would push ahead with the $1.8b build as planned, although with fewer beds than announced in previous business cases.
Under Mr Lepper’s tenure, HNZ did not complete signing the contract with Australian construction giant CPB.
Mr Brown eventually announced the contract was signed with CPB in September.
The build is New Zealand’s single-biggest health infrastructure project and could provide more than 900 fulltime-equivalent jobs and contribute about $100million annually to Dunedin’s economy at the peak of construction.
The inpatients building is expected to be completed in 2031, while the outpatients building should be completed next year.
