2019-08-12 General Committee Agenda

GENERAL COMMITTEE MEETING AGENDA                                                  12 AUGUST 2019


2.    Increased Federal Grant-Funding

Council successfully applied for grant-funding through the Federal Government 2018-2019
Heavy Vehicles and Bridges Renewal Program ($922k). Following negotiation with the Federal
Government on the constraints of using the original proposed Cathodic Protection delivery
model, additional grant funding of up to $2.3 million for the project was approved if required to
cover up to 50% of the project cost (revised total grant available $3.2 million). Contingent on this
funding is the requirement to have the project completed by October 2020.

3.    Refinement of Cost Estimates

A high level concept design process, examining both remediation and replacement options, has
led to an initial understanding of likely capital costs for the project. Despite this, there remain a
number of unknowns, including costs associated with temporary relocation of utilities.

Project staff are continuing to develop a better understanding of the potential capital costs for the
project and options for best mitigating Council’s risks. Research into other, similar-sized bridges
recently delivered by both government and private developers in Southeast Queensland
(including the Sunshine Coast) indicated that Noosa’s estimations are in line with current trends.

Notwithstanding finalisation of these estimates, the initial financial assessment reveals that whilst
replacement will be a more expensive upfront cost compared to remediation, the additional grant
funds and lower annual maintenance costs for replacement result in favourable long term
outcomes for a replacement option.

4.    Proposed Procurement Approach

There is concern that entering into a standard public tender process may not result in successful
tenders from the market, given the technical nature of the project delivery requirements and
associated risks on pricing, scheduling, quality and community management. A failure of the
tender process would lose several months of time out of this required delivery schedule, placing
significant pressure on the project as a revised procurement strategy is developed (refer further
discussion in Section 4). Current scheduling of activities necessary for procuring and delivering
the project allows enough to time to undertake an EOI process, provided this commences by
September 2019. This is therefore considered a lower risk-strategy from a procurement and
scheduling perspective.

An EOI process for project delivery that packages together the design requirements and overall
construction responsibility would lead to a better outcome for Council in terms of mitigating
financial risk, and allow a strong understanding of what the exact costs would be prior to project
commencement. A Design and Construct (or D&C) contracting model carried out by a suitably
capable contractor would be best developed via an EOI process.

5.    Experience using EOI with the Park Road Boardwalk Project

The Park Road Boardwalk project was delivered in 2018. This involved the design and
construction of a replacement section of boardwalk between Park Road and Noosa National Park
carpark. This project involved a number of uncertain elements, especially with the design and
construction methodologies, and was initially offered to the market as a Public Tender. However,
this process did not lead to a successful outcome as a suitable contractor could not be identified.
The tender process was abandoned and the project subsequently went through an EOI process
to better understand what the market was capable of delivering. This was ultimately successful
as the process allowed a greater degree of information to develop for Council around value-for-
money, competition and capacity/capability considerations. However, there were significant
delays to the schedule as a consequence.


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