Railway Lands to Margaret Street Walkway Project Complete

(City of Mount Gambier Construction and Maintenance Robert Duff, Manager Development and Regulatory Michael Silvy
and Team Leader Construction and Maintenance Chris Habets at the Margaret Street Walkway)

The City of Mount Gambier's $300,000 walkway project linking Margaret Street and the Railway Lands has been completed. The project has transformed the historical industrial building on the site into a pedestrian thoroughfare, toilets to meet community demand, and a storage shed, as well as three phase power and water. “It links directly from the central plaza area in the Railway Lands through to Olympic Park. The idea there is that for a significant event that requires additional parking or access, you can park and walk through to the Railway Lands,” City of Mount Gambier Manager Development and Regulatory Michael Silvy said. “We’ve recycled all the floorboards from the original building and now they are part of a new deck area. We’ve also reused the timber from the old floor to build internal frames and balustrading. It’s a showcase of what can be done to an old building to give it a new lease of life,” Mr Silvy said. In addition to revitalising the current building, paving and landscaping was undertaken to blend in with the main area of the Railway Lands. “There is quite a bit of open space within the 800 square metre allotment, which we have paved and landscaped. We’ve also installed lighting, seating, fencing and removable bollards.” City Council hopes that access to power, water and toilets in the area will encourage the community to host more events within the Railway Lands space in the future. “Before the works, the Southern side of the allotment had no easy access to power. A lot of events are positioned in this area, and they had to run power all the way back to the platform where the power is located. It was difficult for us to get power across to where they wanted it, so this project has given us an opportunity to do that,” Mr Silvy said.