Clarence Valley Council seeks update on Grafton Base Hospital redevelopment pause after flooding revelations

The $263.8 million Grafton Base Hospital redevelopment has hit another hitch as flooding concerns have been aired. But some say alarmist advice is “impractical and almost irrelevant”.

Chris Gulaptis speaking about the hospital upgrade when he was Clarence MP. Picture: Adam Hourigan/Daily Examiner

Community concerns are growing after the long-awaited Grafton Base Hospital redevelopment was temporarily paused due to flooding concerns.

The massive $263.8 million development had reached its early planning stages in February, according to the state Labor government.

Progress has been slow on the major hospital redevelopment initially promised by the Nationals more than four years ago, following a community campaign.

An overview of the Grafton Base Hospital Redevelopment. Picture: Health Infrastructure.

Clarence Valley Council adopted an updated Clarence River Flood Model in October, with the model showing extreme flooding events could impact the site.

In response, the NSW government announced a “project pause”.

While the government said the pause was needed and would be temporary, residents have aired frustrations about the snail pace of the project.

Mayor Peter Johnstone moved at Tuesday’s council meeting that council write to the government to seek confirmation the redevelopment was a priority and would proceed as planned – and the motion was adopted unanimously.

The Grafton Base Hospital Community Committee has also written to the council with concerns.

The committee points to the pause and concerns raised being over the top.

Extreme floods are typically beyond a one in 2000 year flood and are also referred to as a one in 100,000 year event by The Annual Exceedance Probability (AEP), members noted.

Grafton was impacted by the 2022 floods, which devastated large parts of northern NSW. Picture: Saeed Khan.

“Whilst we don’t deny the possibility of such an extreme event occurring, planning infrastructure to avoid such potential eventuality would disqualify most public buildings, and therefore in our opinion is impractical and almost irrelevant,” a statement reads.

“Given the Grafton Base Hospital (GBH) current inability to provide adequate services to our community, we believe it is critically important that Council make urgent representations to the Health Minister in writing so the minister is aware of the extremes in this report, and that the GBH redevelopment should not be unreasonably ‘halted’.”

This is not the first time the committee has agitated for the project’s advancement.

In 2020, members unveiled a banner in Prince St, demanding action on the upgrade.

The five metre long banner on the balcony of the former Weileys Hotel featured caricatures of former Clarence MP Chris Gulaptis and then-Premier Gladys Berejiklian.

A Grafton Base Hospital Community Committee banner.

The redevelopment of the hospital comes as the main building is more than a century old. Six decades have passed since wards underwent a significant refurbishment.

The hospital is anticipated to finally be completed come 2030.

The redevelopment will be split across three zones, a masterplan shows.

Work will include constructing a new zone for a main public entry and multistorey clinical services building. Plans also note a “retention zone” and a “future development zone” on site.