By JOLENE OGLE
COUNCIL staff have confirmed major capital works projects are underway, with repairs to the Munna Point Bridge expected to start in the next few weeks.
In the Planning and Organisation Committee meeting on Tuesday (15 September) Noosa Council director of planning and infrastructure Martin Drydale said Council were ready to award significant tenders over the next few weeks.
“As we’ve mentioned before at previous committee meetings, the first three months of this year are really around finalising the designs, going through the tender process,” he said.
“The major carried-over projects are Munna Point Bridge. That now is getting close to the final detailed design and construction activities are likely to start in the next few weeks. That will then start consuming capital dollars.
“The other significant carry-over project (from last financial year) was Rifle Street, Pomona, and that work has now commenced.”
Mr Drydale said the sealing of Dr Pages Road has gone out to tender, with plans to award the tender in the next month.
“All in all, those three projects on their own will total somewhere near $10 million,” he said.
When asked about this financial year’s capital works program, Mr Drydale said it was progressing “really well”.
“Dr Pages Road was a significant part of that. Another significant one is the resurfacing of David Low Way. That’s going to commence soon and we have a lot of parks works currently planned and underway as well,” he said.
“So we’re pretty confident that certainly by Christmas we would have gone through a significant part of that capital budget.”
Mr Drydale said the held-over works from last financial year’s budget won’t impact this year’s program with many projects underway or in the planning stages.
“We’ve fully planned out this year all of the capital works projects,” he said.
“Certainly by the end of the third quarter we will be more than three quarters of the way through, including the carry-overs.”
Councillor Frank Wilkie said he wanted to compliment Mr Drydale and his team for their hard work over the past financial year.
“With a $24 million capital works budget, you’ve completed 70 per cent of it. Considering the former Noosa Council had a capital works budget of … $6 million, you delivered on 70 per cent of a $24 million capital works budget, which is about $16.8 million worth of works, which is still delivering two and a half times the output in capital works of the former Noosa Council,” he said.
“So the bar was set very, very high. Perhaps we might have learnt something about managing community expectations. It’s good to be ambitious, a lot of work has to be done, but it’s still a very hard working team you have.”
