Mira Mar landslip: MacTiernan says State Government ‘all in’ to find solutions

Regional Development Minister Alannah MacTiernan says the State Government is doing all it can to find short-term and long-term solutions to the ongoing issues cause by a landslip in Mira Mar. The landslip between Sleeman Avenue and Anzac Road started causing issues in August 2021 before six homes were ordered to be evacuated in October when the situation escalated. Two of three damaged homes on Sleeman Avenue were demolished in May, following recommendations made by a State Government commissioned geotechnical report in December. Last week, the Government announced it had appointed an independent geotechnical consultant to deliver a detailed technical investigation which it hoped would “begin with a month”. CMW Geosciences will investigate the landslip zone to understand options for long-term remediation and stabilisation. The company will also continue to monitor the site and recommend urgent temporary works during its investigation in an effort to protect remaining properties from further damage. Reacting to last week’s announcement, Anzac Road resident Alan Smith said it had been “a long time coming” after “battling this alone” for more than a year. Mr Smith said some of the residents still planned to pursue a class action lawsuit in the future, but they needed to wait until a solution and total cost was identified. Ms MacTiernan said she was “shocked” by any suggestion that the Government had waited a year to act because conditions needed to be stable on site before a full assessment could be carried out in a safe manner. She said preliminary geotechnical work, funded by the State Government last year, had found a full assessment could not be carried out until 10 and 12 Sleeman Avenue were demolished. “For a whole variety of reasons it took until May this year before those houses were demolished,” she said. “We can’t go in and risk people’s lives by having them bring machinery on to a site that is not stable.” In May, City of Albany chief executive Andrew Sharpe said private excavations in the landslip zone in late March had caused “significant ground movements” and delayed the demolition. Ms MacTiernan said that by the time the two houses had been demolished “the rains had started again and the site was too unstable”. “We now have everything absolutely lined up so the minute that it is dry enough that machinery can be brought on to site to do that drilling and investigation work so we can really understand what is happening and work out how the problem could be solved,” she said. “We can’t start spending money (on remedial works) until we have got a proper understanding of what is going on under there. “There is no lack of willingness or urgency but we are constrained by nature and safety.” Ms MacTiernan said the Government had already spent “in the order of $200,000” on surveys and temporary remedial works. “I understand that it is a incredibly difficult positions that the residents are in,” she said. “I don’t think it’s fair to say that we’re not all in there trying to solve it, but the forces of nature here are huge. “We don’t understand yet exactly how this system works and that’s what we’re trying to find out.”