Flood aftermath to delay North Queensland Stadium completion date

The Queensland Government has advised that as a result of the flooding that affected Townsville during February, the practical completion date of the new North Queensland Stadium’s has been pushed back a month.

Queensland Minister for Sport and Minister for Housing and Public Works Mick de Brenni announced that a request by managing contractor Watpac to push the practical completion date of the stadium from 21st November to 19th December as a result of at least 200 suppliers working directly on the project being unable to access equipment due to the February flood catastrophe.

Minister de Brenni advised “the Department of Housing and Public Works is working day and night with Watpac to figure out how we can make sure that we can continue to compress those time frames to ensure that December date is met.

“We are going to have to pull out all of the stops.”

Minister de Brenni said the Queensland Government was still “very confident” the new venue would be ready for the start of the 2020 NRL season “save for any other natural disasters”.

He added “obviously the buck stops with the State Government (if the stadium is not ready), the buck stops with me, that’s why I’m regularly here in Townsville monitoring the project.”

He also advised that the Queensland Government would be looking for “innovations in programming and scheduling” to minimise any further disruptions to the site.

Stadium operator Stadiums Queensland has also been approached about commissioning their part of the project before practical completion.

Images: Artist's impression of the completed North Queensland Stadium (top) and the Stadium site during February's floods (below).