Motorists won’t drive on West Gate Tunnel until late 2024 but other projects set to take flight

The West Gate Tunnel’s opening date has been pushed back another six months due to the creation of a toxic soil dump.

Transport chiefs hope major tunnelling will start on the troubled West Gate Tunnel later this year. Picture: Ian Currie

Building a special landfill site to dump contaminated soil from the $6.7 billion West Gate Tunnel is likely to take six months, pushing out the toll road’s opening date until late 2024.

Transport chiefs say they are hopeful major tunnelling on the project can begin by the end of this year, with a further three years needed to finish the link between the West Gate Freeway and CityLink.

Approval was granted this week to the Hi-Quality Group to build a facility at its Bulla location northwest of Melbourne, meaning contaminated soil – which includes an industrial chemical called PFAS and asbestos – can be transported there once protections are in place.

Director-general at the Major Transport Infrastructure Authority, Corey Hannett, said it was up to the project proponent, tolling giant Transurban, to select a site for the soil to go to once approvals were granted, with two other landfills also in the mix.

Workers on the West Gate Tunnel in Melbourne. Picture: Alex Coppel.

“We need the Joint Venture and Transurban to choose a site, the site needs to be constructed (which) … takes about six months,” he said.

“Then we are anticipating seeing tunnelling starting later this year and then it’s about a three year process.”

Mr Hannett said Transurban had recently notified the stock exchange about it being unable to deliver the project by 2023 – which was already a year later than contracted.

He said the government was in “daily conversations” with Transurban and its builder, a joint venture made up of John Holland and CPB, to kickstart the major tunnelling once environmental approvals were in place and a landfill was constructed to take toxic spoil.

Director General of MTIA Corey Hannett, when he was in charge of the Regional Rail Link.

Mr Hannett would not be drawn on how the government may enforce penalties in its contract with Transurban for missing the 2022 deadline for finishing the road, but said the approach taken would be to ensure the best interests of taxpayers were met.

In a briefing on the government’s $80 billion “Big Build”, which also includes the Suburban Rail Loop, level crossing removals, the airport rail and a suite of road projects, Mr Hannett said two consortia left bidding for the $15.8 billion North East Link were keen to build the “prestigious” project.

He said the timeline for that mega link, which would connect the Eastern Freeway to the M80 in Greensborough, would not be affected by the West Gate Tunnel’s later opening date.

And changes to the way the government would manage the contract for the NE Link, which will see taxpayers assume more risk but also control of the project, has enthused the bidders.

“If anything that’s probably made both consortia far more hungry,” he said.

Big Build Projects across Victoria. Image: Supplied.

The MTIA is also putting finishing touches on an investment case for the massive Suburban Rail Loop, which will tunnel from Cheltenham in Melbourne’s southeast to Box Hill in the eastern suburbs.

The head of that project, Frankie Carroll, said a cost of stage one of the loop, which would eventually circle all the way to Werribee, will be revealed once that process has finished.

Originally published as Motorists won’t drive on West Gate Tunnel until late 2024 but other projects set to take flight