Expensive roundabouts

The roundabout at Bayshore Drive Byron Bay – we are told that $3.5 million will be borrowed under the delegated authority of the current general manager.

This project has had a development appliction (DA) submitted to the elected Council which was then approved but now, staff say, ‘… since construction commenced, the works have been impacted by unforeseen construction issues such as drainage and service relocations that will require a further $1 million to complete the works. The works are a condition of the current DA’.

I am confused by this, how are unforeseen issues contained in a DA submitted to the elected Council?

Were not these million dollar issues identified and included in the original DA?

There are other issues of concern. There is still the issue of the sewer gravity mains in Mullumbimby which are falling apart, but supposedly relined in a five-year contract awarded to a Queensland company completed in 2025. To my knowledge no evidence has been supplied to substantiate which mains have been relined.

The building of a new wastewater treatment plant in Mullumbimby, which was built to treat seven times the dry weather flow generated by Mullumbimby and commissioned in 2011. The issue being this plant reaches its hydraulic load and exceeds on occasions during long rain events.

The proposed closure of Ocean Shores Treatment Plant which was put up by water and sewer staff supported by the Director of Infrastructure and described to the EPA by Council as being absolutely necessary as the site was a very difficult site to manage. The issue with this is that nothing of substance was spent on OSSTP since the 1995 upgrade to address their concerns, their whole mindset was to remove the plant.

Numerous other issues exist of ratepayers being treated appallingly, and community members.

Alan Dickens, Byron Bay