The contractor renovating Austinmer’s ocean pools has been told to fast-track the work in a bid to get them ready for the start of summer, Wollongong City Council’s project manager said.
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With the estimated completion time being drawn out from late September to hopefully the start of December, beachgoers and surf club members have become frustrated as the weather heats up but their beloved pool is still closed.
Council project delivery manager Glenn Whittaker said the job was taking longer because concreting could only be done when the lowest of tides coincided with the right swell.
‘‘To work on the eastern wall, the ocean wall, we need a combination of very low tide, and low sea, low swell,’’ he said.
‘‘That is a body of work that has to be done and we’re waiting for that event. It gets a very short window of work. People expect seven or eight hours of work; you don’t get that. You get half a day.’’
There may also have been times when contractor Specialised Marine Services had manpower commitments to other jobs, Mr Whittaker said.
Council has now requested the job be expedited.
‘‘We’re currently working with the contractor to bring the end date forward,’’ Mr Whittaker said.
‘‘We’re trying to make sure he maximises his working time at the moment. We’ve had meetings with him and we’re trying to make sure he programs every bit of work he can into the time that we’ve got.’’
But it was not possible to give a completion date owing to the unpredictability of the swell.
Mr Whittaker said the decision was made to complete additional works now rather than be forced to close the pool again in the near future.
The fact the pipes joining the two pools were asbestos was not discovered until the works were underway, and other weaknesses in the sea wall were also found.
‘‘It’s obviously a prudent time when you’re doing the pool to take them out,’’ Mr Whittaker said.
‘‘We don’t want to interrupt the service to the community again and again ... overall over a long period of time it’s less disruptive.’’
The extra work will take the cost beyond the $500,000 originally budgeted.
Mr Whittaker said the cost would come within the ‘‘contingency’’ allowed for in the contract, but declined to elaborate on how much this was likely to be until after the job was completed.
