A quietly-released Mineral Resources Tasmania report declaring south-east Tasmania’s supply of concrete-quality sand “effectively exhausted” has sparked urgent concerns regarding the feasibility and cost of the proposed Macquarie Point AFL stadium.
Independent MLC for Nelson Meg Webb warns that the necessity to transport materials from over 300km away will inevitably drive up construction costs, questioning why the government withheld this critical data during recent budget estimates.
While the Tasmanian Government faces scrutiny over the potential logistical nightmare of trucking sand from the north-east to build the $1.2 billion project, major local contractors appear to have already mobilised to fill the void. Hazell Bros has been aggressively upscaling its operations at their nearby Leslie Vale quarry, hoping to “future-proof” against the shortage.
Development applications and EPA documents confirm that Hazell Bros is seeking to more than double the quarry’s production capacity. The company aims to increase extraction from approximately 583,000m³ to 1.25 million cubic metres per annum (approx. 2 million tonnes).