In February 2022, Tweed Heads, located on the Northern Rivers Region of the NSW Coast, witnessed the worst recorded flood in the region’s history, receiving over 1000 millimetres in 48 hours. The local road network connecting Murwillumbah to Uki sustained significant damage due to flooding of the Tweed River.

In late 2023, the contract was awarded by Tweed Shire Council to begin restoration of Kyogle Road and Mount Warning Road.

BG&E was engaged by CMC as the Lead Consultant to restore four significant landslips – three along Kyogle Road and one along Mount Warning Road. The total restoration of the project is valued at approximately $40 million.

The project involved the preparation of 30% concept designs to progress the Early Contractor Involvement (ECI) for eight significant damage sites in Tweed Shire Council’s (TCSs) Local Government Area (LGA). CMC were successfully awarded four sites based on BG&E’s concepts, to progress to detailed design.

As of 2024, these road restoration works are in progress, with riverbank rehabilitation works being undertaken by the Tweed Shire Council’s Coast and Waterways team.

BG&E collaborated with Tweed Shire Council in adopting the same rehabilitation (soft) treatments to achieve a homogenous and integrated solution.

The successful inclusion of the ‘soft treatment’ addressed the environmental and ecological criteria, resulting in obtaining timely statutory approvals to enable construction.

The reconstruction scope included

• Up to six metre high gabion retaining walls over hundreds of metres at each site.
• Guardrails to protect motor vehicle users.
• Rock backfill with earth anchors to stabilise the slopes.
• Concrete cut-off wall to protect the road pavement from scour.
• Boulders with timber pin rows (soft treatments) to naturally resolve the downstream impact of a gabion structure.

BG&E was requested to complete concept designs for a further six major sites as a variation to the ECI. The early design work included the scope to repair the Mount Warning Bridge. The proposed construction will permanently replace the missing concrete span, currently substituted with a temporary timber deck, and address various other repairs needed for the bridge.

The eligible detailed design solutions developed by BG&E delivered a saving of over $1 million from the total outturn costs and significantly shortened the construction program. This is behind BG&E’s design philosophy to reduce impacts and long-term disruption to local communities and road users.