The Dunedin City Council is confident problems with the new contractor in charge of the city's mud-tanks will be resolved.
Councillors at yesterday's infrastructure services and networks committee meeting were considering a staff report which showed Downer was failing to deliver on some key performance targets.
The company was last year awarded a three-year, $45million transport maintenance contract, after earlier criticism of Fulton Hogan over inadequate mud-tank maintenance led to a shake-up.
The report to yesterday's meeting showed Downer was performing well in mud-tank maintenance, and was ``on track'' to complete cleaning of the network by the middle of this year.
However, the company needed to improve in some areas, including customer service, where it was below target in its response to public requests to the council's customer services agency, the report said.
The company was required to respond to 95% of requests within set timeframes, but had only managed 81% in October, 77% in November and 78% in December.
That meant more than 220 requests to Downer had slipped through the cracks in the period and joined a backlog of overdue work.
However, council acting transport group manager Richard Saunders told the meeting council staff had been doing ``a lot of work'' with Downer to improve the results.
The latest response time figures had improved as a result, to 93% compliance, and staff were ``hopeful'' the performance would be maintained, he said.
