General News
22 January, 2025
Cr hits the roof over project cost
TWO roof replacements that were destined to be contracted out by Tablelands Regional Council will now be done by the council’s construction crew.
Officers sent the two jobs – the roof of the Lapidary Club at Tolga and the Lakeside public amenities – out to tender but when it came time to award the tender for $340,584 at the council’s last meeting of 2024, Cr Kevin Cardew had other plans.
He moved that rather than awarding the contract to a private contractor, and council having to allocate an additional $171,000 than initially estimated for the job, council’s construction crew could do the work.
Cr Cardew said he was prompted to act given the “exorbitant price to do a simple re-roof” job on both buildings and cited his many decades of experience in the building sector to back his view that the council’s construction team could handle the job.
“I’m a licensed builder by trade, been a building surveyor for more than 30 years, and back in the day, I used to run the construction team for local government, and we have the capability of doing (the job)
in-house.
“We have to get away from spending ratepayers’ money unnecessarily on jobs like this here that we can do ourselves.
“This should have rung alarm bells with our officers when they did this report.”
Cr Cardew said he contacted a local shed company to get an indicative price on the cost of building a new 500sq m shed, complete with slab, and was advised it would be between $250,000 and $280,000.
“And here we are being asked for $340,000 just to put a roof on – it’s absolutely ridiculous.”
Cr Kylie Lang said she strongly agreed with Cr Cardew and believed the council was capable of doing the work, but Cr Dave Bilney questioned whether council had the resources to do the job.
Infrastructure Services general manager Mark Vis agreed that council’s construction crew was “a capable and competent team” but they were already fully allocated to a large program of works.
“If council decides to approve this, then obviously council staff can deliver that work – it will just mean we have to assess the program that we have allocated to them and consider whether we can defer or outsource some of those works,” he said.
“Although we have a very capable team, it’s not a very big team. The contractor indicated the job would take 10 weeks so we need to understand how much time our resources would be needed for the job and how that would impact our program.”
He acknowledged the budget was a lot higher than first estimated but noted that the scope had also increased to include wall cladding and a concrete apron around the lapidary club building. The job also included laying a 23m concrete slab at the entrance to the clubhouse which was being funded by the club.
Mr Vis said building materials continued to rise in cost and were forecast to rise again by 4.8% in February.
But Cr Cardew was not deterred, saying it was time council took on such works to save ratepayers money and cited many buildings within Atherton that had been constructed by previous council crews as proof it had been done in the past and could be done again.
Mayor Rod Marti did want to add to the discussion but Cr Cardew moved that the motion be put to the vote, which was backed by the majority, preventing the Mayor from expressing his view on the issue.
Council unanimously voted to back the new recommendation that council undertake the job in-house.
