Landslip repair cost to blow out

THE COST of reinforcing the landslip in Yamba St has blown out after workers struck dense clay when driving in steel piling sheets this week.

An excavator rams steel sheet piling into the site of the Yamba St landslip. Picture: Rodney Stevens

THE COST of reinforcing the landslip in Yamba St has blown out after workers struck dense clay when driving in steel piling sheets this week.

Last week Clarence Valley Council deputy general manager Rob Donges told the Daily Examiner the cost of installing the steel piling and building a block wall to reinforce the embankment would be $150,000.

After striking the clay, council has hired a vibrating head for the excavator installing the steel piling, which could see the cost blow out by $110,000.

The eroded material was removed from the road earlier this week, with the steel piling being the next step in rectification work on the site, followed by the block wall construction early next year.

Mr Donges said the vibrating head was the best option.

"Another less-expensive way is to pile-drive the sheets in, but we would have shattered every window within a couple of hundred yards of the site if we tried doing that," Mr Donges said.

He said hiring the equipment to install and remove the sheeting along the 60-metre section of the bank caused the cost blow-out.

"We have now got about four months to have a good hard think about it because we don't want to spend anything like that amount of money."

He said council expected Yamba St to be open to traffic in both directions this week.

Originally published as Landslip repair cost to blow out