Local construction boom

LARA’S Chisholm Road Prison Project has exceeded a key local content target by 50 per cent this month, with more than 45,000 labor hours allocated to workers living in Greater Geelong suburbs with high unemployment rates.
The project, which will see more, ongoing jobs created when the prison opens in 2022, has already injected a total of $200 million into the local economy.
The state government has spent $126 million on services and supplies from businesses in Greater Geelong and Melbourne’s western suburbs, and $74 million to employ local sub-contractors and workers living within 30 kilometres of the project site.
Lara MP John Eren said the project was “meeting and beating its targets to provide local opportunities and investing in workers starting out as trainees and apprentices”.
“As well as creating over 1,000 jobs during construction, this project will create additional ongoing local jobs once Chisholm Road is operational in 2022,” Mr Eren said.
Specific employment targets for workers in the Geelong suburbs of Corio, Norlane, Whittington and parts of Colac, were set prior to the start of construction in February 2020.
These postcodes were identified as focus areas for targeted recruitment in consultation with the G21 Regional Opportunities for Work (GROW) initiative.
The project is continuing to actively recruit from targeted postcodes, after exceeding an initial goal of offering 30,000 labor hours to workers based in these areas.
More than 1200 workers are currently on-site to build the new prison, which is next to the existing prison precinct which includes Barwon Prison and Marngoneet Correctional Centre.

The project entered its peak construction phase last month, with workforce numbers expected to rise to more than 1,400 in coming months and the external construction of the 41 buildings on site now largely complete.
Ten percent of labour hours on the project are allocated to young workers including apprentices, trainees and cadets.
Construction of the prison is being managed by John Holland, overseen by the Community Safety Building Authority, which delivers infrastructure on behalf of the Department of Justice and Community Safety.
The Chisholm Road Prison Project will generate an economic benefit of $279 million for the local area and, in addition to construction jobs, Chisholm Road is expected to create hundreds of ongoing jobs and provide ongoing economic benefits to the Greater Geelong region once the facility is operational.
The project is expected to achieve 92 per cent ‘local’ content from Victoria, Australia and New Zealand, and will maximise the use of locally milled steel.