MidCoast flood recovery and restoration works program
RPS’ project management team has coordinated a $25 Million program of civil repair works across New South Wales’ MidCoast region, following infrastructure damage from natural disasters in 2021 and 2022.
Spanning more than 10,000 square kilometres, the MidCoast region encompasses a diversity of coastal communities, rural townships, and small localities. When severe weather smashed the region in 2021, flooding and landslips damaged hundreds of roads, bridges and other assets across a huge area.
With the Council’s in-house operations team deployed on rapid fixes to vital infrastructure, RPS’ project management team was engaged to coordinate remediation to sites with more serious damage. Severe weather events caused further destruction the following year, expanding the repair program to over 50 locations across the LGA.
With Council’s work teams stretched to capacity, it was vital for MidCoast to prioritise emergency works. By engaging our team on more complex, long lead-time remediation, Council workers could focus on keeping essential routes open, and local communities safe.
Before: significant damage to MidCoast infrastructure
Project management for regional remediation success
RPS Senior Project Manager, Mark Vandoros has been managing the repair works program locally for MidCoast Council for the last three years. Providing end-to-end management, he oversees the procurement and management of consultants and contractors to undertake geotechnical investigations, prepare designs, develop procurement documentation, undertake environmental assessments and undertake construction work in a way that causes least disruption to affected communities.
With the 2021/22 natural disasters impacting much of the east coast and coming straight off the back of the Black Summer bushfire season, a key challenge for the MidCoast remediation program has been intense competition for designers, specialist contractors, and materials.
In addition to managing these resourcing challenges and the logistics of work sites distributed across thousands of kilometres, RPS has also assisted Council with the preparation of funding applications and communication with Transport for NSW (TfNSW), and affected communities.
RPS is proud to have supported the region’s recovery and to be helping MidCoast Council manage such a huge program in line with community needs and expectations.
