Stuck on road to nowhere
Contractor sues over $1m in unpaid work on project
A CAIRNS civil construction company is suing an Ingham developer for more than $1 million in unpaid work involved in a failed development.
Cheshire Contractors was hired to undertake civil works on a 256ha block 11km north of Ingham, which had been intended for subdivision.
“This is all about the complainant, a civil works contractor, getting payment for the work he did,” barrister Christopher Taylor, for Cheshire Contractors, said.
The work occurred on two separate occasions. First in 2011 and then in 2014.
Mr Taylor said that within that time frame Cheshire Contractors completed just under $1.49 million worth of preparatory civil work – $1,066,092.57 hasn’t been paid. The Cairns Supreme Court’s civil jurisdiction was told that the 2011 work was considered phase one of the project and involved a 110-lot residential estate called Hinchinbrook Habitats.
Mr Taylor said his client had been hired by developer Mark Everett to put in a gravel access road for the specific purpose of garnering expressions of interest from punters in the development.
However, when no investor interest was forthcoming, the project was reinvented in the hiatus period and rebranded Riverview Estate, an 81-lot rural subdivision under a new approved development plan.
The court was told that Cheshire Contractors were hired in 2014 to put in another gravel access road up to the subdivision, so that presales could be entered into.
“As it sits today, the subdivision has not been completed,” Mr Taylor said.
“In fact no further work has been done beyond the preparatory work (my client) did in those two periods.”
The trial, under Justice James Henry, continues.