Soutbank project hit by $8m cost blowout

The City of Melbourne will throw an additional $8m at the Southbank Boulevard project which has been beset by delays.

Cost of a key inner-city project by the City of Melbourne has blown out by $8m, a council report reveals.

Approved in 2017, the Southbank Boulevard project has been beset by delays and is now due to be finished in mid-2022.

Works have involved removing car lanes, installing bike paths, and making the area more pedestrian-friendly.

The City of Melbourne audit and risk committee 2020-21 annual activity report said the project required improvement.

“With stages 2-5 of the project still to be completed at the time, it was a sensible decision to use stage one as an opportunity to identify key learnings, bearing in mind that significant expenditure was still to be incurred,” it said.

“The (council’s) internal audit review did identify additional improvements, and these were accepted by management and have been implemented.”

Construction on Southbank Boulevard. Picture: David Caird

Artist’s impression of how the area should look.

The council’s 2021-22 budget has allocated $3.35m for Southbank Boulevard upgrading.

In 2020, the council’s then city design director, Professor Rob Adams, said the project had faced “niggling” issues.

“Unfortunately, VicRoads is in a bit of a mess, CitiPower is unreliable. We hit problems dealing with tram infrastructure,” he said.

The audit committee report was considered by councillors at a meeting on Tuesday.

Other areas identified as needing improvement included staff health and wellbeing, cyber security, risk management, and purchasing and tendering.

The report also noted that an external audit of council waste management subsidiary Citywide had not been completed when the audit committee was asked to endorse council’s consolidated annual financial report.

“The committee noted the unusual circumstances regarding the endorsement of these reports, and advised that similar circumstances must be avoided in regard to endorsement of future annual financial reports and annual performance statements,” it said.

Council’s director of governance Michael Tonta told councillors that publishing the audit committee’s annual report on council’s website ensured there was information available to the council and community around important governance functions consistent with a public transparency policy.