THE Yanchep Surf Club faces a delay with the City of Wanneroo saying on Friday it has ended its contract with builder DGX Construction.
The city said DGX Construction was formally notified of the termination of its contract to build the new surf club on Thursday, 29 September.
DGX Construction is a subsidiary of Diploma Group, which in May, defended its subsidiary Diploma Construction (WA) after it was accused of owing money to dozens of subcontractors.
At the time it was reported that Diploma Group had denied it was behind on paying its bills.
City of Wanneroo assets director Harminder Singh said the city had ended its contract as the contractor did not have a reasonable excuse for being behind on construction of the new surf club.
Mr Singh said the city had taken possession of the building and would secure the site.
“There had been an adequate performance for several months from the award of the contract in February, however from August the city had become increasingly concerned with the departure from the approved program,” he said.
Mr Singh said the city’s immediate plan was to allow for parking and access to the existing surf club building, as well as pedestrian access to the beach, while going through the process of appointing a new contractor to finish the building.
“Evaluation and documentation of the remaining work will be fast-tracked to allow for a new tender to be called this year.’’
On May 11 Diploma Group made an ASX announcement saying it had recently undertaken a review of its operations in light of the current property and commercial construction markets it operated in, in Western Australia.
“Part of that review is to focus more strategically moving forward on increasing its third party construction pipeline in lieu of internally generated development projects,’’ the announcement said.
Diploma has established a dedicated construction business where its core business is the construction of external client projects.
“This entity, established in October 2010 to service the mining sector, has been renamed DGX Construction and now operates from new premises in Leederville, Western Australia.
“The entity has several projects under construction for private developers and government bodies.
“The group’s construction arm is currently tendering on and or waiting for decisions on $97 million of negotiated and tendered contracts which it expects to make further announcements in relation to over the remaining months of this financial year.
“The group is actively pursuing other construction opportunities in the non-residential market as it seeks to diversify its construction focus across a number of different sectors within the construction market in Western Australia.’’
On Saturday the company’s website still had the Yanchep Surf Life Saving Club listed as one of its projects.
The post said the Yanchep Surf Life Saving Club contract included the construction of a new surf life saving club with a boat ramp and adjoining boardwalk ramp, both of which would give access to the beach.
“The new SLSC will also provide additional parking to the venue as well as increased parking facilities for general beach access,’’ the post said.
“Diploma will demolish one of the existing park kiosks and vegetation as indicated on the plans to allow for the extended parking, and boat-boardwalk.’’
