GIA businesses will be aware of the major work being undertaken by Council in Foster Street to seal the eastern end of Foster Street which was never captured in any Fitzroy Shire Council infrastructure budgets as until recently no businesses utilised  the eastern end of Foster Street.  This has all changed now with positive growth reflected in statistics being collected at present on employee numbers and types of businesses in the GIA.

Roadworks at the intersection of Foster & Macquarie Streets, GIA October 2014

The eastern end of Foster Street is now home to Aurizon’s Track Maintenance team (Callemondah to Gogango), along with Tranzhire R Us and Speedy Couriers as well as being home to Mountain Industries, owners of the road train fleet carrying magnetite to the mines, recently bought out by Asciano.  In total there are 72 people employed in the 4 businesses in the eastern end of Foster Street alone. Of course we don’t often see all these people actually in the GIA as the businesses in the  transport hub end predominantly work away from their base in the GIA, travelling as far away as Mount Isa, Cloncurry and all the Bowen Basin resource centres and even down into the NSW resource areas.

Council’s dedication to improving and building necessary infrastructure to support the growing industrial area, is appreciated by all those in the GIA and with continued improvements and landscaping around businesses as seen below, the GIA could have the potential to be one of the most environmentally ‘green’ industrial precincts in the region.

Looking south along Macquarie Street towards the Caltex Unmanned Service Station specifically designed for road trains and B-doubles.

Foster Street’s intersection has been designed with road train and b-double movement in mind with  intersections curved to allow easier traffic movements for the road trains . Kerbing and channelling and street lighting will make a great upgrade to this busy part of the GIA. The improvements to Macquarie Street will be welcomed by the 417 people who are directly employed by businesses that use Macquarie Street as their access route.  Again the bulk of these people work away from their base delivering goods to the resources sector or moving cattle from all over Central Queensland to the Gracemere Saleyards or the meatworks on the northern outskirts of Rockhampton.

The combined expenditure on the two projects currently underway in the GIA is over 4.4 million dollars.

The Middle Road road upgrade will commence this week and will consist of work to install underground stormwater drainage, replace pavement material, install kerb and channel, asphalt surfacing and relocation of some of the overhead high voltage electricity. Expected to take 8 months, it can only be hoped that while rain will be welcome, that there are not too many delays to this time frame.

Further stages to this work will involve the intersections of Middle Road with Macquarie Street and Capricorn Street and Middle Road. Middle Road is also used as access to rural blocks and residential subdivisions to the south west along with employees from Gracemere coming into the GIA for the increasing number of jobs being created.

On completion Middle Road will have been upgraded to a 13 m wide industrial access road including kerbing and channel and street lighting.

Major progress for the area indeed.  The capital being spent by Council is being matched by  growth in the GIA.  In a period of declining employment and businesses in other industrial areas around Queensland, it is great to see continued growth in the GIA.