In partnership with Hawkesbury City Council, NSWPW led a challenging engineering project to reconstruct 715 metres of flood-damaged road in Lower Portland.

Background

During the flood event of March 2021, two sections of Greens Road in Lower Portland slipped into the Hawkesbury River. The total length of road was 715 linear meters.

The complete reconstruction project included:

• the relocation of Telstra services
• tree clearing
• upslope stabilisation by drilling in and construction of soil nails including meshing and shotcreting
• riverbank stabilisation with the construction of reinforced earth retaining walls founded on strip concrete footings
• backfilling using engineered fill
• construction of flexible pavement using two coat seal
• storm water drainage, concrete dish drains and crash barriers.

Our role

NSW Public Works (NSWPW) were engaged by Hawkesbury City Council as project managers to manage the environmental planning approval process, procurement of tenders and contract management services for the road replacement project.

Construction work commenced in April 2022. Construction safety was a critical success factor, with the majority of the work occurring during flooding in March and July 2022 and ongoing rainfall events throughout the year. These events also caused a number of significant engineering challenges.

NSWPW worked closely with the project team and the contractor to identify and manage project risks, which included managing flood events, programming of the works, traffic management and management of the local community.

Outcomes

The Greens Road's reconstruction was completed successfully with no safety or environmental issues, reopening to traffic following a 14-month road repair program.