The Dunedin City Council's decision to go ahead with the upgrade of the the city's bus shelters during one of the coldest months of the year has not gone down well with everyone.
Abbyfield resident Fionna Ogilvy said the timing of the upgrading of a new shelter on the corner of Balmacewen Rd and Lynn St could not have been worse for the nearby residents who used the shelter.
''It's an odd thing for the council to do during what is one of our coldest months of the year.
''For elderly people who use the shelter a lot, not having somewhere to shelter out of the weather is terrible,'' she said.
Dunedin City Council programme engineer Michael Harrison said 13 new bus shelters would be installed during the next three to four weeks.
Mr Harrison said there had been some complaints about the bus shelters being out of service during a colder part of the year, but the work had to be done now.
''It would be nice to be able to do everything when the weather is warm but it was not practical to it until now.''
Because the contractor, Community Asset Management, was based on the North Shore in Auckland work could not be put off, he said. All upgrades to existing and new shelters needed to be approved by the council and needed to be granted building consent.
''All of the ducks were in a row, so to say, so we just needed to go ahead and get on with it, which will not please everyone but it is our only window to get it done.''
Each bus shelter cost on average about $6500 to install, which had come down since the last lot of installations, Mr Harrison said.
All of the new shelters would include a seat.
