Margaret River Heart faces costly safety fix

The Margaret River Heart already needs a major overhaul of its theatre and additional fire risk measures, despite being less than two years old. The admission was revealed at the last Shire of Augusta-Margaret River council meeting of the year under questioning from retired former City of Perth chief Frank Edwards. Mr Edwards questioned why four projects were identified as priorities in the item relating to road and infrastructure grant funding, with the ex-chief bureaucrat asking why regional roads weren’t included. He also wanted to know why details about the projects were confidential rather than listed in the public report, which Mr Edwards deemed “strange”. The report identified four priority projects up for $1.371 million in funding through the Federal Government’s Local Roads and Community Infrastructure program. Legal and governance manager Ian McLeod confirmed the top items were a fire suppression system and urgent safety fixes to the Heart’s theatre floor, plus a contribution to the pending major overhaul of the Margaret River Aquatic Centre, and recently confirmed unexpected cost overruns on repairing bridges on the Wadandi Track. Costs remained confidential, where the full list of priorities was also located, but the Times understands the bulk of the sought funding would go to the two Heart items, with the fire system previously excluded from the Cultural Centre redevelopment under former chief Gary Evershed to keep the budget down. “A previously unknown defect that was not apparent and therefore not identified during construction works requires the Shire to undertake remedial works,” Mr McLeod said of the theatre floor. “The Shire has and continues to monitor risks relating to this defect to ensure that there are no risks to staff or users of the theatre.” Also, “adjustments are required to improve evacuation from the backstage area of the theatre which is an area that was not modified through the original construction process”. “The works proposed relate to an area of the building that was excluded from the original construction process,” Mr McLeod said. The Shire lawyer defended the lack of road projects in the funding request, saying municipal grants and road-specific grants addressed road upgrades. The reported detailed grouping the two Heart items as top priorities, with a trickle down of priorities depending which projects got the Federal Government’s nod. It also acknowledged neither Heart items were included in the Shire’s Long-Term Financial Plan. “Fully funding both these projects as priority through LRCIP Round 3, with the allocation of the remaining funding allocated to the Aquatic Centre renewal, already anticipated in the LTFP, will see a saving in the borrowing amount currently required to undertake the Aquatic Centre project,” the report said.