Sheeting home the blame for the roof failure on Wollongong's $ 29 million stadium is fast descending into a battle of political point scoring.
The need for sporting seating accommodation in the Illawarra was ignored by the previous Labor state government for years, and finally in it's final days it granted the money. The work was undertaken under it's auspices - but the clean-up will be the responsibility of the Liberal government that replaced it.
The almost completed new grandstand was hit by a wind storm on Tuesday - and two support struts broke. News reports state that these were held by bolts a mere 16 mm in diameter - and to the layman that seems to be a classical case of " under engineering ".
So - now the " blame game " gets under way. Cranes costing about $ 15,000 an hour are deployed to allow emergency repairs and it is yet to be decided if the roof will need to be demolished and re-built - and the big question is - who will pick up the tab for these costs ?
To comply with Australian Standards, a grandstand roof would need to be engineered to withstand winds of 150 kph. The wind storm that caused this damage was blowing at less than 100 kph. Amazingly, the Illawarra Venue Authority ( IVA ) and the Public Works Department ( PWD ) refuse to release the wind rating required in the specifications.
Inevitably, there will be an enquiry - and here the opposing sides of politics will have a golden opportunity for a slanging match. All sorts of extraneous factors will be dragged into the argument - including the fact that the roof was mainly constructed from cheap, imported Chinese steel.
But the fact remains that a roof that will cover thousands of football fans should not fail when hit with a wind way below the standard required for such structures - and the taxpayers of this state should not have to fork out money to repair that failure.
Somebody goofed - and now vested interests are in a mad dash to muddy up the waters !
No comments:
Post a Comment