Council ramps up capital works delivery

Noosa Council is ramping up delivery of its capital works program with the roll-out of more than $4 million worth of projects this month.

Noosa Mayor Noel Playford said Council will have completed designs, if not commenced construction, for all of this financial year's $22 million worth of budgeted projects by June 30.

“We will have broken ground on many of the scheduled items, and for a couple of larger projects where we haven't, they will be fully planned, designed and construction-ready,” he said.

“We recently reviewed our capital works program and staff are confident they can deliver it.”

Council last night signed off on $430,000 worth of Noosaville cycle and pedestrian pathways, jointly funded by the State, and Council is ready to commence an $80,000 Munna Point foreshore erosion mitigation and sand replenishment project once the State Government gives its approval.

Council began a $2.5 million Walter Hay Drive reseal on March 9, part-funded by the federal government's Roads to Recovery program, and a further $743,000 worth of resurfacing and safety enhancement work for Noosaville's Gibson Road will begin next week

“We're installing new Noosa style bus shelters across the shire in a $780,000 project, part-funded by a state government grant, to meet current legislative design and accessibility requirements and better complement Noosa's look and feel,” Cr Playford said.

“And with the first stage of the Noosa Daintree flood mitigation works complete, we’re about to go to tender on the second stage, with anticipated completion by June 30.

“This week we completed a $2.1million Noosa Waters revetment wall repair project, which included $1.2million worth of work in this year’s budget, and work is currently underway on a $200,000 riverside pathway project at Tewantin, funded jointly with the state,” Cr Playford said.

“Normally you’d have your capital works schedule drawn up prior to the start of each new financial year, but as we are a brand new Council we began our first year with all of that planning still to do, and at that stage we had only two design staff transferred to us following de-amalgamation.

“We’ve also had to fast-track catch-up work to bring Noosa infrastructure up to where it should have been in terms of maintenance and condition,” he said.

“This has meant that where we should have just been able to reseal a road we may have had to dig part of the road up first to repair the foundations because its condition was worse than expected for its age. This adds costs, but also time to the project.

“We are exploring opportunities to secure state and federal funding for several of the other projects, and in those cases the timeframes are beyond our control.

“Considering those early challenges we are tracking well for a Council that is a little over a year old.

“And with much of the early planning and catch-up work now complete, we can start to pick up the pace.”

13 March 2015