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Work to repair the significant landslip on Tyalgum Road is set to progress, with a $16 million contract awarded to local construction company SEE Civil Pty Ltd.
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% to 100%.
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.
The contractor’s design work will include the provision of temporary access through the Tyalgum Road site, with the aim for this 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.
Mayor of Tweed Shire Chris Cherry said it was great to finally see progress on 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.”
SEE Group Executive Director Joel Barnes said as a local company, SEE Civil had seen the devastating aftermath of the severe weather events across the Tweed region firsthand.
“The Tweed region is our home and the home of our people who live and work across northern NSW,” Mr Barnes said.
“Following the floods and unprecedented damage across northern NSW and south-east Queensland in 2022, our project teams have launched a number of recovery projects in both states to reconnect communities severed by the damage.
“We will continue to face challenges as we recover infrastructure and livelihoods, and we are confident our expertise and experience in recovery works very similar to the Tyalgum slip will outweigh those challenges.”
Discover Tyalgum owner Brad Sims, whose tourism company promotes the village, welcomed the announcement.
“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,” Mr Sims said.
“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.
Combined, these works represent $61 million – or almost half – of the Tweed’s $125 million total repair bill following the 2022 flood.
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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