Road safety, pavement strengthening and oversize infrastructure upgrades for Central West Orana Renewable Energy Zone

Project Overview‍

On behalf of Council we worked with the NSW Government and renewable energy companies to plan and negotiate upgrades for key regional freight routes to allow safe passage of massive wind turbine blades and other critical infrastructure.

We also played a key role in ensuring Councils were adequately compensated for long term pavement damage by the massive volume of traffic needed to build out the REZ. This project is a vital link in connecting major port facilities with the nation’s most advanced Renewable Energy Zone (REZ), not too far from the major population and economic centres of Newcastle-Hunter Valley and Greater Sydney.

As NSW accelerates its transition to renewable energy, the transport network needs to undergo significant upgrades to support the logistics of large-scale wind and solar projects. Landex was engaged by the local Council to provide specialist development, project management and traffic engineering services on a $20 billion program of works (and growing) including upgrading of several hundred kilometres of road infrastructure.

The upgrades are essential to accommodate the delivery of oversize wind turbine components—some blades stretching almost 90 metres in length—from the Port of Newcastle to the first large-scale Renewable Energy Zone in Australia to have made such progress toward delivery of a cluster of gigawatt-scale renewable wind and solar projects, in the Central-West Orana of NSW.

Landex Managing Director Bevan Crofts was quoted in Renew Economy, highlighting the scale and significance of the project:

"The number of oversize-over-mass movements that one project alone requires is around … 1,500 movements… It’ll take a minimum of two years all going well with no delays to basically get just this project’s load up the Golden Highway… There’s at least 10 concurrent projects waiting in the wings, including others in other REZ’s that need to use this as the sole feasible route to get from the Port of Newcastle to their site” - RenewEconomy.com.au

The road upgrades involved intersection widening, pavement strengthening, road safety improvements and modifications to pinch points along key freight corridors. These changes to the road network ensure the safe and efficient movement of all the project workforce and a huge number of construction material deliveries, including heavy and oversize loads critical to the renewable energy transition.

Services Provided

• Development engineering advice for NSW classified and local road upgrades including the main freight corridors and rural backcountry laneways.
• Traffic impact assessments and route planning reviews
• Infrastructure feasibility analysis for oversize load transport
• Lead negotiations with government and project stakeholders, proactively working with Council’s executive and elected members to advance the interests of the Council and the local communities it serves.