It looks as if Elizabeth Street is high on council's priority list. The one thing we don't need is for the work to join the growing list of disastrous projects which still haven't been fixed.

The most important stage of any project is the design stage and if this is cut short in any way (see Durham Street calamity), the result can be very expensive in costs, public inconvenience and retailer's losses.

Council must find more contractors willing to provide fixed price, fixed duration quotes for the work and who are committed to keeping their overseers, staff and machinery on site. There is nothing unusual about that except in Tauranga. For some reason we allow contractors to set up sites, put up temporary speed restrictions and a bewildering number of cones. Then nothing much happens for weeks. The widening of 15th Avenue is a good example.

Who manages these jobs? Who signs off the time extensions and extras?

Anyway, Durham Street has taught us that spending $10 million doesn't necessarily give us a good result. In fact the boring design, extended construction time and obscene cost is worthy of a public inquiry. I for one would welcome that.

D Russell, Welcome Bay