Local businesses and large construction organisations today attended an industry briefing, as part of the selection process to appoint a Managing Contractor to deliver flood-restoration works on Lismore’s roads and bridges.

Last year’s natural disaster caused significant damage, with 90% of Lismore’s 1200km road network suffering extensive damage, with an estimated $200 million to rebuild and repair. 

Lismore City Council’s Roads and Bridges Project Director, Alan Madden, said the briefing was another milestone in Lismore’s recovery.

“Over the last 14 months, Council has undertaken extensive emergency road works to ensure communities are not isolated,” he said.

“Today we're introducing the full scale works to civil contractors, and there’s a mix of local, regional and interstate people.”

“We're at a stage now where the designs of the works have been scoped, so now we're ready to deliver the works, when the funding approval comes back.

Lismore City Council's Chief Operating Officer Brendan Logan, and Roads and Bridges Project Director Alan Madden.

Lismore has recorded over 2,000 damage locations across more than 400 road and bridge assets.

Restoration works so far have cost over $13 million on emergency works, and $17 million on immediate restoration works.

“This scope is for approximately 240 damage locations, and they include stretches of pavements, landslips, drainage, bridges, and other problem projects.”

Temporary works completed to reopen Tuntable Creek Road following the landslip.

“The bulk of this work will be delivered by a managing contractor, who will be one sole collaborative style agreement, where they will provide resources to deliver works in a collaborative structure.”

“The extent of the damage, and the highly specialist expertise needed in second stage of the rebuild, is nothing short of massive and is beyond the capacity of Council, particularly as we also need to complete our ‘business as usual’ works.”

The briefing also provided an opportunity for local suppliers to form relationships with some of the industry’s most experienced companies.

“The size and scope of the project means the successful managing contractor will need the assistance of many local contractors.”

Lismore City Council have also launched an interactive map on their website, to make it easy for people to get an update on a specific road or project.

It focuses on major flood recovery works within the Lismore Local Government Area to assist the community with finding efficient, up-to-date information. Within the map, you can search for local roads to identify surrounding damaged locations. The damages feature on the map as blue diamonds; when clicking on a damage, a popup box will appear providing the following information;

·      Event Number

·      Damage Number

·      Damage Description

·      Current Status

·      Proposed Remediation

·      Expected Commencement

·      Site Photo

To access the new feature, click this link: https://yoursay.lismore.nsw.gov.au/maintaining-our-roads-and-bridges