THE City of Mandurah is still without the $10million needed to complete the urgent Old Mandurah Traffic Bridge upgrade despite councillors endorsing city representatives to secure the funding back in April.
Instead, Main Roads WA is planning to tender one of the biggest projects the City has ever seen in a bid to recoup some of the costs.
Speaking at Tuesday night’s Governance and Infrastructure Committee meeting, City director of works and services Allan Claydon said the plans released were just the beginning of the plan with a projected $40-45m price tag.
“[The bridge construction] has to be spade-ready come June next year,” Mr Claydon said.
City officers, after meeting with Main Roads WA, the Department of Transport and the Transport Minister recently, made the decision to “test the available budget against the current construction market”.
In plans presented at Tuesday’s meeting, a design brief would be provided to short-listed proponents including four vehicle lanes, a five-metre shared path on the northern side for pedestrians/cyclists, fishing platforms and a higher clearance as some of the many ideas brought up during the consultation stage.
Under the proposed timeline, the tender would be advertised in October with short-listed proponents announced in December.
The contract would later be awarded in June 2015 with the contract set to run from July 2015 to June 2017.
For the above design plans to take effect, the City will need to obtain tenure of some land surrounding the bridge, including part of Halls Park on the western foreshore.
It appears at this stage, the skate park should be able to be maintained but the report makes no mention of the wishing well site on the eastern side.
So far, $43m has been secured for the project with $40m from the State Government and a further $3m coming from the City of Mandurah.
Preliminary approval has been given the land administration processes to begin with a final decision to be made at the next full council meeting.
