Twiggy stripped of exclusive right to develop East Perth Power Station

After two and a half years and $121 million in taxpayer money committed, the McGowan government is back to square one on the redevelopment of the East Perth Power Station precinct.

The DevelopmentWA board last night stripped Andrew Forrest’s investment company Tattarang’s exclusive rights to purchase and develop the prized 8.5 hectare site on the banks of the Swan River.

A redevelopment of the East Perth Power Station is slated to cost $218 million.

Tattarang has held the rights alone since late last year when its former joint venture partner, Kerry Stokes’ Australian Capital Equity, pulled out of the project around the same time the relationship between the two billionaires began to sour.

Before then the joint venture, known as Koomba Kalark, held the rights over the project since April 2020 thanks to several extensions of the exclusivity working period deed.

As late as February 16 DevelopmentWA said it was still committed to working with Forrest’s Tattarang but the latest deed extension expired on Friday and in a huge blow to Forrest and Tattarang the Development WA board decided not to extend it any further.

“After two and a half years of negotiations, the board determined insufficient progress had been made on a range of matters to justify a further extension,” a statement from the board said.

However, on Saturday Forrest said he was still committed to the project and would be working with DevelopmentWA to continue with their proposal.

“Fiveight remains committed to our vision for revitalising the long-neglected East Perth Power Station and creating a landmark public asset for the people of Perth,” a spokesperson said.

“We welcome the state government’s commitment to re-developing the site and look forward to engaging with DevelopmentWA to progress our proposal, which would keep the site in Australian hands.”

Despite an expression of interest period that ran before the April 2020 announcement uncovering four other proponents serious about developing the site Development WA decided it would go back to the drawing board for the future of the 107-year-old landmark building.

“The board had requested the commencement of a strategic planning process for the precinct including preparation of a masterplan and design guidelines,” it said.

DevelopmentWA said it had only been formally notified of the Koomba Kalark split last month despite Lands Minister John Carey having found out in mid-December 2022.

The power station project, slated back in 2020 to cost Koomba Kalark $218 million, has been marred with controversy.

In May 2020 the government revealed to parliament that the four lots that made up the project precinct were worth $1 according to a valuation commissioned by the government because of the high cost of moving power and gas infrastructure and removing pollutants from the site.

The government first committed $30 million to de-constrain the site but over successive budgets and mid-year reviews that ballooned to $121 million.

Lands Minister John Carey said the government remained committed to redeveloping the “derelict” site.

“Over the past two years we’ve invested in major de-constraining works to prepare the site for development, including removal of gas infrastructure, contaminated subterranean coal handling structures and removal of asbestos from the power station itself,” he said.

“Through this investment - we’re now presented with an exciting opportunity to reconsider, with the market, how we can deliver the best redevelopment outcome for East Perth Power Station.”

Tattarang were contacted for comment.