Southroads

CATEGORY 2: Projects with a value between $1 million and $10 million

Surrounded by traffic

The construction of the Stalker Road roundabout near Queenstown had its challenges, including high-density vehicle traffic. The client for this project was Shotover Country, the developers of the Shotover Country Subdivision. The Stalker Road roundabout was a requirement for the consent of the 800 section subdivision. The job was awarded to Southroads. The project involved constructing a 40 metre diameter roundabout on the Frankton Ladies Mile Highway (SH6) to service the new Shotover Country Subdivision. Works included 10,000 cubic metres of cut to waste; 2000 metres of kerbing; 10,000 square metres CATEGORY of pavement construction; 5000 square 2 metres of 50mm asphalt; and 5000 square metres of chip sealing. The challenge was that the site was on an intersection with the busiest road in Central Otago with some 24,000 vehicle movements a day. “Due to this we had to extend the project from the originally planned three stages to five stages,” says Southroads.

With an additional 400mm of dig out required over the majority of the site, there was a large amount of excess spoil. In order to avoid the large cost of carting material offsite and dumping it elsewhere, a construction zone permit was applied for by Southroads so the ADT dump trucks could cart material across Stalker Road and form a large landscaping bund in the neighbouring paddock.

A functioning roundabout needed to be completed by Christmas 2015. Various setbacks (mainly due to dig outs) meant this was pushed out till after Christmas. However, after some long days and work on Saturdays Southroads managed to get the project back on track and completed stage 3 on December 17. After the Christmas break, Southroads was back on deck to finish stages 4 & 5. The final completion date was two weeks late due to repairs to the final sealing after dirty chip had been supplied.

“The Stalker Road roundabout was a great project for Southroads and a huge challenge for the mainly Invercargill based team,” says the company.

This was recognised at the Southland Civil Contractor Awards where the project took out the category for projects over $250,000. l