JIM FAGAN
Mayor Noel Playford calls them “Hazell’s Happy Heroes” and, while Allan Hazell and his team from the council’s public services section don’t see themselves as “heroes,” Noosa ratepayers are about $48,000 better off because of their willingness to work as volunteers in their spare time.
In just two weeks they have installed a new water treatment plant at the Beachfront Caravan Park on Noosa’s North Shore, preventing the park from being closed down by the State’s Environmental Protection Agency and bringing in the job at better than half the budgeted $90,000. There were lots of thanks and heartfelt handshakes all round when Mr Playford, council CEO Brett de Chastel and council holiday parks’ manager, Michelle Stirling, met Allan and the team, Ken Woolway, Barry Postle, Craig Morley and Evan Woolway at the plant site last Thursday. “It was a choice of closing down the park or coming up with a new system,” Allan told Noosa Today. “Compared to the system we had, we have just upgraded massively.” The story starts in 2003 when the council decided to upgrade the plant. A Sydney company quoted $780,000 for the job which Allan said “would be worth $1.2 million now. We came up with a different design ourselves – yes, it was the same team – and this worked quite well. “As the caravan park grew through the years, however, it struggled to keep up so we had to come up with a primary system with better quality outcomes in the disposal area.” Last December Allan was quoted $180,000 for the work. “I priced the new system myself and negotiated with the manufacturer and different companies and haggled the price down to $90,000 which was in the Council’s budget for capital works. “We were going to put it out to tender so we scoped around with a couple of contractors and looked at the prices and thought we can do this job far cheaper and save ratepayers’ money. “We said, ‘let’s have a go at it’ and I did another price. We negotiated and in February we bought all the materials. We also used some of the council machinery when it was on down time to do the heavy digging and the guys did the work in their spare time. I estimate we got the job done for $42,000.” One area of saving Allan is particularly pleased about is the fence surrounding the plant. “The estimate on the fence was around $7000 and we decided to do it ourselves. We priced the mesh at $810 dollars and to get the rails we went to our council yards and found them. Instead of them being scrapped and sent to the tip, we salvaged them, cut them ourselves and repainted them. “The mesh was black when we got it and we sprayed the rails with 15 tins of black paint. The whole job cost $810 plus the paint.” Allan wasn’t too keen to talk about the team’s voluntary work but later Mr de Chastel said the men, who live in Noosa, worked on their days off, weekends and were coming in at 5am to get to the plant early before starting their normal job. “They just jumped in, took responsibility and got it done. It is just fantastic. Thanks doesn’t do it justice.” As part of her council responsibilities Michelle Stirling is also the caravan park manager and she said she could see great difficulty in running the park and being project manager for the new treatment plant at the same time then “these guys came and said we’ll do it for you. “I thought it was a joke but I could see they were just raring to go. They’ve done a brilliant job. They’ve even landscaped the area.”
