Southside sewerage rollout back up and running

Movement has returned to the almost terminally stalled Southside sewerage scheme after a four-year hiatus, with multiple neighbourhoods expected to be connected over the next two years. Full details here:

Life has returned to the flatlined Southside sewerage rollout, and this time Gympie region ratepayers are not paying the entire bill.

The State Government has revealed it is footing the cost for the next rollout of the project under one of its grants and subsidies schemes.

The government has provided $3.54m in funding to install three more stages of the project, with the council contributing another $2.36m to the $5.9m project.

Stages eight, nine and 10 of the 16-stage scheme will be delivered over the next two years.

Houses around Lasiandra Drive, Bethany Court and McIntosh Creek Road were previously scheduled to be the next neighbourhoods to be connected.

Life is expected to return to the stalled Southside sewerage scheme thanks to State Government funding. The scheme has been on hold for the past four years, with questions as to whether it would ever be resumed

The funding will inject life back into the project, which started in 2011 amid much fanfare but then ground to a halt in 2018, less than half finished.

The project has been a lightning rod for controversy.

In 2014, the council told Southside landowners who wanted to be connected they would have to pay up to $10,000 of the bill themselves.

The plan involved connecting Southside homes to the city’s sewerage system in 16 stages. Nine still remain to be finished after the scheme was put on hold in 2018.

It backflipped on this position less than a year later and committed to funding the full cost of installing the network itself.

The scheme finally ground to a halt in 2018, amid concerns over the cost of finishing the last nine stages of the project, and who would pay for it.

The bill for the work at the time was expected to be $15m.

Work on the rollout, funded under the state’s Local Government Grants and Subsidies Program, must be finished by June 30, 2024.