Old Bega Hospital Reserve Land Manager

Chairperson's Report to AGM 13 December2022

This time last year we had the impression that tenders would be called for the restoration early in the new year, but as the new year came we found that there were endless (apparently) small details which were still being raised and resolved between council, the architects and our project manager to which we were not privy. One issue was the OBH heritage sewerage system and finally PWA recommended and Land Manager accepted that the old cisterns be filled with sand and bypassed in the planned system. It was a frustrating and worrying time and we expected that this decision would see the tender called by the end of January. But as the year drew on we were no further informed or progressed. We were not suspecting that nothing was happening but it was difficult to be left out of the loop. Then the leader of our Project Management team - David Mason - announced that he was taking long leave and announced the new team leaders. We found that their briefing for our project was brief and limited indeed and neither leader had visited OBH nor met us - the LM team - or even Richard, our PWA Liaison person: nor had any appreciation of the commitment we had to the project. It seemed it was just another job to them.

The tender document was finally published in mid June with a pre-tender application mandatory meeting. There was no specific invitation to Richard to attend the meeting although the LM members strongly supported the idea that Richard should attend. Some changes were made to the tender document - again without reference to us. I am thinking, in particular, of the change of allowing 75 weeks to the successful tenderer down to 55 weeks. We questioned this change as, by then, it was becoming clear that worldwide and national economic conditions were rapidly changing in a "perfect storm" of circumstances - the continuation of Covid pandemic impact on available staff in manufacturing, rising petrol costs on transport and manufacturing, rising prices on all commodities, and availability of construction commodities and materials. We were assured that the decision was taken with due regard to these issues. The Land Manager was not to brief any intended applicant.

One positive (in fact RED Letter Day -15 February) event was that we had been successful with our Black Summer Bushfire Fund application and had (at that point) the funding to move from a projected Stage One restoration into the full project. Indeed this change had some bearing on the delays referred to above. We were still nervous about the daily economic news coming through. The funding news meant that we had to negotiate with BVSC the change of the scale of the project and the Project Team and architects had further adjustment of details. In general we found the BVSC to be cooperative. More delay in awaiting a new variation of the Deed of Funding.

In the even Richard reported to us that 3 local building firms attended the meeting and 3 Sydney and Canberra firms. They then had a month to prepare their applications. We live in a regional area and so heard on the grapevine that the large reduction of completion time discouraged the local firms on the basis that they were smaller and less confident about meeting the target schedule in tens of supplies and staff. This was discouraging as we had known beforehand that local firms were definitely interested in making a strong contribution to a significant heritage building in their patch. Finally, there were 2 outside bids - and, in their estimates, grossly over our available funds. The Land Manager members were keen to negotiate with the preferred applicant and have a comprehensive discussion about what the builder could achieve of the whole restoration plan with the money available. As volunteers this seemed like a best available option. The project team absolutely banned this approach and strongly counselled that we seek more funding from the funding bodies. All of these bodies had previously advised us that they would not consider any further extension of the funds received. We have spent 18 years attempting to meet a variety of conditions of funding bodies - and frequently funding an obstruction to success in the fine print. Also Crown Lands legislation (2016) has made the Land Manager a semi-government body although we are only a Ministerially-appointed body of community volunteers and appointed for a finite term of 5 years (we will finish in December2024). This now renders us rather suspect/not eligible in the terms of Commonwealth funding and we do not readily meet the terms of many state funds either. The only option left according to the Project Team (our chosen experts) was to reduce the scale of the project and re-tender. We've worked so hard and given up many, many hours to get this far, we have to bow to reality.

Again, we have been frustrated at the delays that have followed. At last in mid-November - after complaints to more senior staff in Public Works Advisory - the (open) re-tender has been advertised and will close in mid-January. Although, as a very ignorant tender foot in these matters, I gather that the local firms could consider applying given that the scale of the project and timing are reduced. Are the needed times and conditions improving? I have no idea but I can hope. One issue of concern is that the earlier Quantity Survey on which we based our costs request to the funding bodies is quite inadequate in the current climate. No resolution yet.

I have to express my admiration and thanks to John Reynolds as our Treasurer and Richard as our Project Liaison Person who have scrutinised all expense invoices coming in and kept the rest of the LM informed on how our funds are going - OUT most of the time for necessary preliminaries and we haven't even started the rebuilding. And our time in office grows shorter. I am also aware that other significant projects in the Bega Valley (though often apparently more generously funded ) have run into similar problems and delays. And John and Richard have been vigilant in keeping track of dates and timelines and keeping funding bodies informed. And thanks to our 3 funding bodies for their generosity and understanding in considering and extending dates. We had rather expected that by mid2022 we would be living with a construction site - but not yet!

Although our particular focus has been on the restoration project there have been many other administrative tasks to consider and act upon. Claire has been working on her book detailing the story of OBH. Covid has had an impact there and she is currently considering the quotes for publishing. We have sought funds for smaller repair and refurbishing projects without success.

BVSC, as part of their conditions of the Certificate of Occupation, has set down requirements for what they consider the LM responsibility for part of the road works in Corkhill Place and the expanded access to Newtown Road. When this was first mooted, OBH sought a combined meeting with BVSC and the other road users - Tarra Ford, Scarletts’ Buses and RD Miller to discuss the whole event. We were the only organisation to respond. It has never happened but it seems BVSC is still expecting a (never detailed) contribution. Tarra Ford, our new Corkhill Place neighbour, is clearly proceeding with road works but we know no more. We have not included this cost in our restoration funding because it was not known at the time of writing the applications. Crown Lands - whom we approached when the issue was first broached has definitely stated that they will not fund the LM for a project which they consider is totally a council-owned site responsibility. Will we get to the end of the restoration project and find that Council will not provide a Certificate of Occupation because we have not contributed an unknown amount? This problem remains unsolved.

I should also report on the second successive year where this Land Manager has reached the final cut of the Crown Lands LM of the Year and I the Individual Award. Covid has interfered again and the real event at Leura was changed to an online event. We were not successful - although I do wish RLM as a group who have laboured hard for such a long time could have been recognised. My congratulations go to the chosen group and individual.

In the few days since I drafted this report, several items of interest have occurred: firstly, we have received notice from Crown Lands that we were successful in our application to the Crown Reserves Improvement Fund to restore the Nurses' Quarters veranda floor ($63,625 including GST) - very good news and something to start off 2023 in positive style; BVSC has renewed the issue of what OBH RLM is planning for the Corkhill Place roadworks. to be discussed at the LM meeting following this AGM on 13/12/22. The outcome may form the first item on next year's Chair's Report.

In an Annual Report such as this there are people and groups to thank the Friends of OBH lnc and the sub-member the Events Committee who have worked valiantly to contribute funds to OBH and have been temporarily defeated by the Covid issue and rules. Despite this setback, the members of the Events committee have organised successful raffles and spent many hours selling and spruiking the importance of the restored building as a community asset and enterprise: and the 2022 Raise the Roof Festival did proceed on 30 October. The weather was sunny and the community came out and celebrated in enthusiastic manner. Thanks to all who contributed. Thanks to all the LM members who have attended general meetings and special meetings, read and responded to many emails and requests to make decisions and comments between meetings; and demonstrated their determination that this project will succeed. Thanks to the user group members for their efforts in a variety of ways. The Bega Men's Shed in particular for their continued lawn mowing. And the arrangement with the Department of Community and Justice which uses OBH as one of the sources of supervised community service work for people to serve out their sentence time in the community rather than in prison. This has been a very successful combination of learning social skills, contributing energy and talents, collaboration and supervision which truly represents the best of what community in action means.

What happens now? We await the response to the currently open tender and hope we can experience building action in 2023.

 

Pat Jones
Chair
12/12/22