Councillor Ian Pottinger last month filed a Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act request seeking details on the amount spent on consultants for Project 1225, which includes the new museum for Southland, the tuatara enclosure and also a storage facility in Tisbury.
From July 2021 to February this year, the council spent $5,565,113 in total — $5,198,845 for the museum, $257,097 for the storage facility and $108,371 for the tuatara enclosure.
It included $2,554,604 for the build design, $1,178,322 for the fit-out design and other costs such $337,927 for museum operation advice and $249,519 for legal services.
About 80% of this amount was spent in the past two years — in the 2023-24 financial year the council spent $2,341,637 and in 2024-25 it was $2159,727.
Cr Pottinger said he believed this was not a reasonable amount for one project. He agreed Invercargill needed a new museum but said it should never have had its budget increased.
Councillors approved an additional $13m last October, increasing the final bill for the project to $87m.
"I guess the advice I’ve had from various project-related people [this amount] should be around between 3 to 3.5% of the total project, but it seems to be consistent with the overspend that’s happening right from day 1.
"And there’s questions definitely around [it]. Is this the end of it? Is there more to come? ... Like, when’s the finishing date? Is it 2026, 27, 28? I’m not sure, so that’s a lot of money.
"I guess we should have probably been told these figures voluntarily without me having to ask for them, but I think you’ve just got to keep asking questions."
Cr Pottinger said he filed a notice of motion asking for the infrastructure and projects committee’s chairman to arrange for time and resources at their next meeting to allow questions around the figures for the museum.
If approved, this would happen at the meeting scheduled for May 13, he said.
Invercargill Mayor Nobby Clark said yesterday he had advocated for the council to cut expenditure with contractors and consultants, but believed in this case it was a reasonable amount.
"Putting aside the fact that Cr Pottinger keeps referring to the museum as the mayor’s vanity project, that’s not the case. The community have been very, very clear on a number of things — One, they want the museum sorted and sorted quickly. Two, they want us to future-proof the museum for 50 to 100 years.
"So, what we [are] building is not a replacement of an old-style conservative museum. They want something for the future."
He said the community last year had the opportunity to "claw back" some of the costs of the museum and a public consultation was carried out to check if they agreed on the increase in the budget.
He said the feedback the council had received was that the community wanted the project to continue, knowing there was some escalation in costs.
"But the issue of consultants is a really important part of the discussion. If I wanted to create a museum that was conservative, there’s any amount of people that can give me advice.
"But when you want to do something that involves interactive, involves a lot of new technology, I don’t see where that advice comes from. You need specialist advice. So hence, we’ve got a specialist agency with overseas experience involved, and that comes at a cost."
