Quesnel City Council is expanding phase 2 of the West Quesnel Land Stability project and at no added cost to the taxpayer.
A budget surplus in excess of 1.6 million dollars will allow for three upgrades to the original work.
Ken Coombs, the Director of Capital Works and Infrastructure, says that includes extending the storm drainage and road works to include Abbott Drive from Flamingo Avenue to Dawson Street and extending the storm drainage and road works to include Anderson Drive from Abbott Drive to Wade Street.
He says they will also replace the water mainline on Abbott from Flamingo to Dawson but that money will come out of the water utility reserve.
Another project could also go ahead.
Mayor Bob Simpson says they are giving staff the latitude to do it if it’s possible within the original budget.
That project, extending the storm water upgrade on Lewis Drive from Healy to Perry Street, is budgeted for 379 thousand dollars.
As for why there was such a large surplus, Coombs says they received very competitive bidding because they were able to tender the project in February and March before companies already had jobs, the purchase of land by the Elks Hall created a staging and fill area that changed the dynamic of the project and saved them a lot of money and because they didn’t need the contingency money set aside in what turned out to be a very accurate cost estimate by Urban Systems.
