Faced with the high costs of a limited supply of concrete bridge components, Coffs Harbour City Council, New South Wales, has taken the innovative – and unusual – step of setting up its own manufacturing plant in the city.
The plant is run by Council’s Infrastructure Construction and Maintenance arm, which also operates as Coastal Works, a Business Unit offering civil construction services to other councils and NSW Government agencies.
The primary aim of Coastal Works is to benefit the local community by winning construction projects that would otherwise go to large commercial civil contractors from outside the area.
By using local sub-contractors and services on these projects, Coastal Works also helps inject money into the local economy.
With hundreds of ageing timber bridges throughout local government areas across the northern part of New South Wales needing replacement or repair – as well as 50-60 in the Coffs Harbour local government area alone – Coastal Works identified a need to have a local supplier of small bridge components.
Council’s Director Sustainable Infrastructure, Mick Raby, said, “Previously, the only places we could source bridge components were Newcastle or southern Queensland and with such limited suppliers, the costs were correspondingly high.
“So we decided that the best way forward was to manufacture our own bridge components which we can on-sell to other councils, offer as part of a construction tender and use for our own replacement and repair works.”
To accommodate most types of bridge construction, Coastal Works is now able to offer a range of bridge options.
These include a precast concrete model, a modular bridge solution incorporating steel girders with transverse concrete deck panels, as well as a hybrid version incorporating concrete abutments and timber girders and deck. Coastal Works’ expert crews can also build full timber bridges.
“One of our key selling points is that, because we are part of a council, we totally understand the financial constraints, aims and community expectations of local government and can tailor solutions for other councils
accordingly,” added Mr Raby.
