As the flood 2022 bills come rolling in for Tweed Shire Council (TSC) it has become apparent that almost half of the $125 million total repair bill will be spent on repairing landslides that have impacted access routes.
The combined works are predicted to come to approximately $61 million say the council as they announced the imminent awarding of a number of contracts to progress the design of repairing landslides across the shire.
Tyalgum Road landslip
A $16 million contract has been awarded to local construction company SEE Civil Pty Ltd to repair the significant landslip on Tyalgum Road.
‘The contract was awarded following an extensive tendering process, supported by a Letter of Agreement from Transport for NSW, and will allow the contractor to progress design work from 30 per cent to 100 per cent,’ said a spokesperson for TSC.
‘A further $4 million will go towards additional costs on the project, such as land acquisition and site work, bringing the total cost of the Tyalgum Road landslip repair to $20 million.’
SEE Civil is also the preferred contractor for the $2.3 million project to restore the two slips on Limpinwood Road – the main alternative access route to Tyalgum village. Transport for NSW is currently assessing the proposed works prior to Council awarding of the contract.
‘Design work for Tyalgum Road is expected to take until late May to complete, with work expected to start on site around the same time.’
Temporary access
The aim is for temporary access through the Tyalgum Road site to be in place by the latter quarter of this year. Limpinwood Road will remain open to one lane as per the current situation while reconstruction work takes place, which is also expected to start at the end of May.
The Mayor of Tweed Shire Chris Cherry said it was great to finally see progress on the restoration of the Tyalgum Road landslip.
‘This is the biggest and most complex of the Tweed’s landslips caused by the devastating flood of February-March last year and today’s announcement represents a significant milestone in the Shire’s recovery,’ Cr Cherry said.
‘I know the Tyalgum community has been frustrated by the time it has taken to get to this stage – and the inconvenience caused by the severed roadway – and I thank them for their patience.
‘Now we have this contract in place, SEE Civil will be able to continue the process of designing and working on restoring our road network in a manner that will make it more resilient and able to better deal with the challenges of future natural disasters and climate change.’
The limited road access to Tyalgumhas seen school children spending three hours a day on the bus to get to and from school and seen local businesses suffer as tourist numbers dropped.
‘This announcement today is a huge relief for residents, businesses and visitors to know the repair is actually going ahead and we’ve finally got a contractor. We now know how long it’s going to take to fix the road and a temporary road is happening with no more delays,’ said Discover Tyalgum owner Brad Sims, whose tourism company promotes the village, welcomed the announcement.’
‘It’s a relief for locals to know the extra driving hours and time wasted is coming to an end. We’ll all get our normal lives back. Businesses will be able to plan for the future, Kids won’t spend three hours a day on school buses and tourists will return to Discover Tyalgum again.
‘While we’re not there yet, everyone will be happy to see the work is starting.’
Other landslip repairs
Tyalgum Road is one of several major landslips in the Tweed that occurred during last year’s record flood, with the others including Scenic Drive, Reserve Creek Road, Kyogle Road, Mt Warning Road and Limpinwood Road.
At its meeting on 2 March, Council selected a preferred contractor which will allow work to commence on completing designs and construction of the landslips on Kyogle Road and Mt Warning Road.
Civil Mining & Construction Pty Ltd has been selected for three contracts worth more than $28 million to restore three sites on Kyogle Road and also the contract to restore Mt Warning Road worth more than $11 million. Transport for NSW is currently assessing the proposed works prior to Council’s awarding of the contract.
Work is already underway to complete designs for the restoration of Reserve Creek Road ($6 million) expected to be completed after Easter when on-site work will commence, with the goal of establishing temporary access by mid-year. This is another contract awarded to SEE Civil.
And construction to restore two slips at Scenic Drive, Bilambil Heights was completed in February at a cost of $4 million.
All of these flood recovery works are funded through the Australian and NSW Governments’ Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements (DRFA).
Follow Council’s Flood Recovery works program at www.tweed.nsw.gov.au/flood-recovery-works.
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