Without the rocks, construction stops  

As outlined in Shaping SEQ 2023, the region is projected to reach a population of over 5.9 million people by 2046, requiring an additional 836,800 dwellings to be delivered along with essential supporting infrastructure. Specifically, the Gold Coast is projected for significant growth a population projected to reach over 1 million people to 2046, requiring an additional 161,700 dwellings to be delivered, again with supporting urban infrastructure.

The management of this growth inevitably gives rise to several strategic planning challenges that the Gold Coast must consider if it wants to continue to be a well-designed and liveable city – a World Class City. 

As Boral is the largest integrated construction materials company in Australia that provides a broad set of essential building materials to the construction industry, namely the manufacture of concrete and aggregate materials, Boral is well positioned to support the Gold Coast’s response to this growth through this development application seeks to address two of the more challenging city-building issues for the Gold Coast:

1. The RCKRA Project will secure continued supply of affordable construction material essential to support the required housing and infrastructure to meet the Gold Coast’s significant growth; and
2. The WBCWRR Project will support increased certainty around sustainable waste management solutions and associated infrastructure to meet the Gold Coast’s need for additional waste management and resource recovery facilities.

Boral’s local sourcing approach directly benefits the Gold Coast community as it:

• Reduces travel distances which means we can deliver high volume low value construction materials cheaper, faster and safer to our local customers.

• Reduces transport costs, which accounts for approximately 1/3 of the market price to our local customers.

• Reduces truck movements and associated congestion impacts on the City’s road network, including the Pacific Motorway.

• Less trucks means reduced traffic related carbon emissions and associated environmental costs.

• Supports priority and emerging business sectors and supports local employment.

• Underpins a strong and sustainable construction industry - one of the four major economic pillars of the Gold Coast.

Boral’s West Burleigh Quarry has been in operation for over 50 years and currently supplies around 25% of the demand for aggregates in southern half of the Gold Coast’s Local Government Area and Tweed Coast regions. Its reserves will be fully exhausted in approximately 13 years (subject to market conditions).

To secure a continued supply of locally sourced materials that will directly support the delivery of the city’s growth demands, Boral proposes to unlock the State’s Key Resource Area 96 at Reedy Creek to coincide with the depletion of resource at West Burleigh Quarry, situated on the eastern side of the M1.

In response to the City’s recent realisation that the city will run out of landfill airspace in the next decade, once quarrying activities cease in the East Pit of West Burleigh Quarry, Boral intend to establish a non-putrescible construction waste landfill and resource recovery facility as a way to rehabilitate the quarry void space to a safe and stable landform in a timely manner.

Construction and demolition waste is non-putrescible which does not decay like household waste.