Wellington Forrest Road Widening & Upgrade

Project works involved upgrading 3.24 kilometres of unsealed gravel road to complete a sealed link from Pile Road to the Wellington Mill townsite in the environmentally and culturally significant Wellington State Forrest.

Works were challenging due to the environmentally sensitive location. This included discovery of protected flora, presence of noxious weed, and the construction footprint being constrained by a creek on the low side of the road. The road geometry also included a vertical rise of almost one-hundred metres over its length. This required significant earthworks, up to 4 metres at some locations to meet earthwork design levels.

Gravel material for pavement construction was sourced locally. The pavement was a mixture of 150 mm overlay on the existing pavement, with a 250 mm layer adopted where the existing pavement was deemed unacceptable. Leeuwin Civil managed all NATA testing to achieve compliance with the WA Road Authority (Main Roads WA’s) standards.

The road’s steep geometry also called for stormwater drainage and rock drains. These were placed in strategic locations on the alignment (upstream of the inlets) with rock protection placed around them to prevent erosion.

Leeuwin Civil also managed all traffic management requirements and stakeholder engagement. This involved daily communications with local residents to ensure continued access to properties for the duration of the works. 

Key Features: 

• Locating and protecting the extensive undocumented services encountered. 
• Careful clearing and disposal of redundant kerbing, road seal, and debris.
• Extensive earthworks due to significant variances in the road’s vertical alignment.
• Drainage works including culvert extensions and new and replacement pipe installs.
• Supply and construction of loose laterite rock stone pitching.
• Box out of new pavement areas to design subgrade depth.
• Gravel supply for pavement construction.
• Construction of a two-coat hot bitumen seal.
• New kerbing construction, backfill and compaction.
• Supply and construction of a galvanised steel W-beam guardrail.
• Redundant line-marking removal, and installation of new line marking and signage.
• Crack sealing treatment for the Wellington Discovery Centre car park.