Northlink Industrial Estate

The project involved extensive co-ordination of services and stages within tight timeframes. The project team was multi-disciplined and interactive meetings of the full team allowed issues to be identified early and potential solutions canvassed and examined. In particular, the land consolidation and likely staged development impacts on the site, terrain modelling and location of secondary drainage treatment and disposal areas and the wastewater pump station.

Shane Highman was the Lead Engineer co-ordinating all aspects of planning, design, approvals, tendering, contract award and construction administration. Jamie assisted Shane with the tendering, contract award and construction administration duties. Doug was the principal Civil Designer, and Dane assisted in some aspects of the drafting and design. UPD were the power and communications consultants for this estate and worked closely with Porters in the design and coordination of the various stages.

Key Challenges/Management Strategies

• Extensive bulk earthworks across the estate optimising the delivery.  Significant earthworks were required to enable the sewer and drainage servicing.  Parts of the site required 15m of cut and others required 4m of fill.  Forward bulk earthworks contracts were set based on balanced earthworks and to ensure the delivery of the project to meet timeframes of the client.  Porters optimised the earthworks designs to best suit the volume of fill offset against the basin sizes.
• Liaison with the community.  Part of the site was managed by a local Aboriginal community and there were various areas of significance that had to be protected.  This included a local burial area and a birthing tree.  Porters assisted the developers in formalising the burial grounds and designed dedicated access around the estate.  Porters also configured the road and lots around the birthing tree site which ensured its protection.
• Significant forward servicing works. Water, sewer and power headworks were required to enable the servicing of the estate. Porters managed all aspects of these works, including the addition of the wastewater pumping station and pressure main into the Water Corp’s capital investment program. Porters kept in frequent contact with the Water Corporation during the planning and engineering phases of the works to ensure timeframes did not slip.
• New signalised intersection and upgrade of existing road.  The site was severed by a Distributor A and bounded by a Local Distributor road.  The scope included the upgrade of the Local Distributor to median separated dual carriageway plus new signals on the Distributor A.  Detailed discussions were held with Main Roads and the City of Wanneroo to facilitate the planning, engineering and delivery of these.  Both had significant existing infrastructure that required protection including the banding of a Ø1400 primary water main.
• Flexibility to meet the developers and lot purchaser’s requirements.  Flexibility was required in our designs to enable the subdivision of the lots. The lot layout and configuration was changed frequently to meet lot purchaser requirements.  Porters presented various servicing options and suggested value add items to enable the delivery and sale of the lots to suit the purchaser’s needs.

Due diligence began in 2011 with detailed design late in 2011. Construction of Stage 1 commenced in June 2013 and the final stage in June 2016.  Project Value $26.5 Million.