Wollongong City Council has been working to stamp down on non-compliance at construction sites across the city.
The Building Sites Compliance Program was launched in November 2022 in direct response to a number of significant non-compliance incidents at construction sites, which occurred during heavy rain events.
The Program is part of an 18-month trial that focusses on a proactive approach to inspections to ensure the requirements around the key operations of building and subdivision sites including sediment and erosion control, dust management, waste management, noise and hours of operation are being met.
This focus continues other work in the compliance area including two free educative workshops held in August last year to support local building companies, project supervisors, private certifiers and others to improve their onsite sediment controls.
The workshops provided advice for site supervisors for residential home builders, and project managers/earthworks contractors of sub-division sites.
See Council's article: Building awareness for site compliance.
Wollongong City Lord Mayor Councillor Gordon Bradbery AM said that the focus of the program is on managing environmental and community impacts.
"We know that while many of those working in the construction industry take their responsibilities seriously, there are many others who are not following the rules," Cr Bradbery said.
"It's important for the building industry, especially tradies, to keep the community on their side. With a little bit of forethought and consideration, costly problems as well as inconvenience and tension can be avoided.
"That's why a big focus of Council's program is to educate people on best practice and their obligations for environmental protection. We live in a beautiful part of the world, and we want to make sure that our natural assets, especially our coastal regions and waterways, are cared for responsibly."
Did you know?
The NSW Environment Protection Authority (EPA)'s Get the Site Right campaign encourages builders and developers to reduce their environmental impacts on waterways in NSW.
Since November 2022, Council ran 369 site inspections. Of that number, 199 were found to be non-compliant.
Wollongong City Council Director Planning & Environment Linda Davis said that the current level of non-compliance was a sobering figure.
"While it's disappointing to see so many people do the wrong thing, I think that there's a real opportunity to educate the construction industry, to improve the standards to which they work and to demonstrate to them that Council will act if they're not meeting the requirements," Ms Davis said.
"What we've found is that issuing penalties is one of the best ways we can encourage people to do the right thing. From November 2022 to the end of April 2023, Council has collected $77,615 in revenue through fines and penalties."
What actions has Council taken since November 2022
- 369 site inspections
- 31 Penalty Notices issued
- 12 Written Warnings issued
- 70 Verbal Warnings
- 193 educational discussions (advice on preferred practices and controls to be implemented on site to minimise environmental impacts)
- 22 notification emails/letters to the relevant Principal Certifying Authority (PCA)
- 7 Clean Up Notices issued.
Thinking to the future… Council is getting ready to run a series of Builders BBQs in West Dapto. This will give Council staff an opportunity to share information about building site compliance with community members before they get started and pick up the tools.
