Ray Walsh House asbestos problem threatens to kill council's budget

A report from Public Works NSW identified a range of options for Tamworth Regional Council (TRC) from stripping the asbestos at an estimated cost of $13,240,000 to constructing an entirely new building for $104,250,000.

The report was presented to TRC councillors during a workshop in April. The local government has not yet decided on how it will proceed.

The Leader understands some councillors have not yet seen the report and expect to discuss options for Ray Walsh House's future at a meeting on May 28.

A copy of the state government's draft report obtained by the Leader lists five options and estimated costs:

All options include the $1 million TRC has already spent on the first stage of Ray Walsh House's remediation.

TRC has been petitioning the state government to pay for the building's remediation, but after almost a year with no firm commitment some members of council are losing hope.

"My gut feel is, with the little responses we've been getting, they're probably not too interested in helping us at the moment," Tamworth mayor Russell Webb said.

Cr Webb addressed the massive cost of the asbestos problem at the Tamworth Business Chamber's recent State of the City forum, describing it as an "elephant in the community".

"Understand that Ray Walsh House, when it is stripped out and all the asbestos is taken out, it's only going to be a concrete shell, so basically if we're to rebuild it the numbers are horrendous," Cr Webb said.

"It's not just carpets and painting, it's air conditioning, plumbing, electrical, a lot of the windows aren't energy efficient, there's a massive amount of work that will have to be done there."

TRC general manager Paul Bennett provided more context for the eye-watering sums.

"The building is more than 50 years old so it's not just going to be a concrete shell, it's going to be a 50-year-old concrete shell," Mr Bennett said.

"It is highly non-compliant with current building practices. The car park beneath is non-compliant, the internal access through the building is non-compliant, so you are essentially starting with a blank canvas."

The mayor and general manager's comments are supported by the state government's assessment, which listed a total of 28 non-compliance issues in the 50-year-old building.

Some of the issues have minor fixes like replacing cupboards, while others require major restructuring.

"I think the options are you sell it as-is to someone who knows how to do all of this stuff and they re-purpose it; we bite the bullet and spend $60 million or more to refurbish it into a new and contemporary office building; or we strip out the asbestos to make sure it's safe on behalf of the community and someone else makes that decision on how to re-use the structure or whether it should be demolished," Mr Bennett said.

Council has previously told the Leader it bought Ray Walsh House from the state government in the 1990s and at the time no asbestos issues were disclosed.

But two years ago hundreds of staff were forced to relocate after the air conditioning on levels one, two, and three stopped working, and fixing it was deemed a health risk which would expose staff to asbestos.

One of the reasons removing the asbestos comes at such a high cost is because of how prevalent it is throughout the building, as Mr Bennett explained at the State of the City forum.

"There's been some speculation in the community, acting on total misinformation, saying statements like the asbestos is in the lagging of the air conditioning system, which is absolute rubbish," he said.

"The real issue there is they used a product called vermiculite to insulate the building, and that made the building costs cheaper because they could use less steel with this spray-on insulation.

"So it's stuck to the structure, it's not around the air conditioning, it's actually stuck to the structure. That's the stuff that's got the asbestos in it."

Removing the remaining asbestos will require stripping out nearly all above-ceiling surfaces, removing all adhesives, and grinding back the building's concrete.

That process will need to be repeated across nearly the entire building.