‘Smacks of a political fight’: Council slammed over ‘poorly planned’ Story Bridge restoration

Brisbane City Council is seeking more than $4 million from the federal government to help repair the Story Bridge amid criticism it has “poorly planned and poorly managed” the restoration of the city’s most iconic piece of infrastructure.

Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner has previously said, and reiterated on Monday, that the bridge needed renovations “beyond just giving it a fresh coat of paint”. The council also released photos on Monday showing the extent of rust and corrosion on the bridge.

“We’ve been a steward of the Story Bridge since 1947, but the work ahead is beyond the means of local government alone,” Schrinner said.

The council was seeking $4.5 million from the federal government to complete a detailed business case for the bridge’s restoration.

Schrinner said the council lodged its bid more than three months ago and expected to receive a response from the federal government before the year’s end.

He said the restoration of Brisbane’s City Hall was supported by the federal government “because they knew it was an important asset for Brisbane”.

Repairs on the Story Bridge, which involved progressively stripping back old paint and applying new protective coatings, revealed major complexities, the council says.Credit: Brisbane City Council

The lord mayor said he expected the state government to commit further funding and “take a key lead” on the restoration down the track.

“If you look at other places in Australia where there [are] bridges of this scale, they’re usually owned by the state government … generally, they’re not council bridges,” Schrinner said.

But the council’s opposition leader, Jared Cassidy, said the plea to the Australian government was too little, too late.

“If they know that this project is too big and the damage is too much, they would have known that for some time,” he said.

“This now just today smacks of a political fight that [Schrinner] wants to have with the federal Labor government.”

He said the Story Bridge, which officially opened in 1940, had been identified as an “at-risk structure” since 2016.

The council said it had allocated $875,000 in the current budget for repair work on the bridge, as part of a $78 million pledge made in 2019 to restore the structure over five years.

The repairs, which have involved progressively stripping back old paint and applying new protective coatings, revealed major complexities, Schrinner said.

Rusted steel plates and rivets needed to be replaced, he said, and damage caused by salt air corrosion and general ageing of the 84-year-old structure needed to be addressed.

Rust and damage caused by the bridge’s environment – including salt in the air – would cost millions in restorations on the 84-year-old structure.Credit: Brisbane City Council

But Cassidy said that “as costs blew out, [the] council decided it wasn’t as important as other projects they had in mind”.

He said only 20 per cent of the expected restorative works had been done in the five-year time frame, and the council had no intention of committing more funding.

“I would think at some point over the last five years after scratching away layers of 80-year-old paint, they’d have realised something was wrong before 2024,” Cassidy said.

More than 100,000 vehicles cross the Story Bridge each day, with over 40 per cent of those starting their journey outside Brisbane, the council said.

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