Premier Colin Barnett has promised to revisit fire-ravaged Yarloop after controversy over the costs of clearing damaged homes and businesses as well as claims the process is taking too long.
Local MP Murray Cowper asked Mr Barnett to look at the situation after Yarloop hotelier Greg Burton was quoted $275,000 by the government appointed demolition company - but got another local company to do the job for just $50,000.
"Its all agreed. The local company has put the fence up around the property and they will be here on Monday to start pulling down whats left of the hotel and our house," Mr Burton said.
Following the bushfires which destroyed the town in January, the state government stepped in to co-ordinate the demolition and rebuilding of the town.
The normal tender process was set aside to speed up the process but there have been complaints that the clearance and rebuilding process is taking too long and costing too much.
Mr Burton said he was told the government would pay the cost of having his former home demolished but that he would have to pay for his ruined hotel to be pulled down.
"The government appointed demolition company, Toxfree, quoted me a total of $275,000," he said.
"I was told the government would pay $75,000 of that to cover the cost of demolishing the house.
"Instead I got a quote from the local company, John Cross Demolition.
"They came out and had a look and said they would do the whole thing for $50,000, and I decided I would pay all of that out of my own money."
Mr Cowper said he was shocked by the quote.
"The company has quoted some ridiculous price and the government has accepted it," he said.
"But I have now got an undertaking from the Premier that he will revisit Yarloop and take a look at how the whole thing is going."
Having got the cheaper demolition quote, and agreed to it, Mr Burton took to Facebook to ask the government to do something for the community with the $75,000 he had saved them.
A spokesman for the Department of the Premier and Cabinet said that it wasn't clear if the two quotes, or estimates, were based on providing identical services.
"It is not possible to determine whether the alternate clean-up figure quoted is for the same service and standard that Toxfree would have provided the hotel owner in its estimate," he said.
"Without seeing the specification from the other provider showing what service the company proposes to provide for the reported fee, there is no way of knowing whether they are providing a comparable service."
Wait and see
Mr Burton and his wife Julie don't know if they are going to rebuild the Yarloop hotel once the site has been cleared.
"It's too early to say," Mr Burton said.
"We will have to wait a while and see if the town recovers and comes back bigger and better than ever, or if it dies because most people who used to live here eventually move away.
"It'll probably be a couple of years before we can look at the town and make a decision to rebuild or not.
"At the minute only 10 percent of the people who used to live here are still living here and I can't run a business on those numbers."
Currently the Burtons are living in a bus on what used to be the campsite section of their property.
"We don't know if the town is going to emerge again," Mr Burton said.
"About half the people who lived here were renting - most of them in Alcoa-owned premises - and Alcoa has said they will not be rebuilding the destroyed homes.
"So potentially there is a lot of people who will not be returning to the town."
