Construction company to pay millions for leaky school buildings

A construction company has been ordered to pay about $13 million for leaky buildings that have troubled an Auckland school for the past eight years.

Botany Downs Secondary College, a co-educational school with a roll of nearly 2000, resorted to using buckets in classrooms to deal with the leaks, a court has heard.

The three plaintiffs — the Minister of Education, Secretary for Education and the school’s board of trustees — said construction defects caused leaks in nine buildings.

H Construction North Island Ltd, formerly known as Hawkins Construction North Island Ltd (Hawkins), built the buildings between 2003 and 2009.

Justice Jonathan Downs said today Hawkins must pay $13,424,967.40 plus GST.

If the parties could not agree in relation to costs, the plaintiffs could file a submission by May 15 and Hawkins had the opportunity to respond by May 29.

“The sum is not small, but Hawkins was paid approximately $28 million to build the school; pupils and teachers have not had the benefit of healthy code-compliant buildings for eight years; and the award reflects the amount necessary to repair the school, not more,” Justice Downs said.

Justice Downs said Hawkins was liable to pay to fix four out of five defects and for a component of a sixth.

The defects included inadequate ground clearance, poorly formed metal roofs and poorly formed internal gutters.

“An aspect of Hawkins’ defence, at least to some elements of the claim, is that
fault lies with the architect because of design failings,” the judgment reads.