19/08/2026
It’s taken almost five years, a mountain of paperwork, countless hoops, a few grey hairs and probably several small forests worth of forms… but we’re finally almost there.
Along the way we’ve had an elevator supplier go bust — that’s a story all on its own — an Impact Assessable Development Application, endless approvals, revisions, requests for more information, requests for information we’d already supplied, and enough certification gymnastics to qualify as an Olympic event.
The project itself is the conversion of an old dive training centre into a modern, hostel-style accommodation building. It’s been frustrating, rewarding and, at times, a pretty good demonstration of how bureaucracy, incompetence and an increasingly over-zealous certification process can make a relatively straightforward construction project feel like you’re trying to get approval to build a nuclear reactor.
But we stuck with it.
After nearly five years of design, redesign, approvals, negotiations, changes, more approvals, and the occasional urge to throw the computer out the window, we’re now down to the final hurdle — QFRS approval.
So, barring anyone discovering that a handrail is 3 mm too short, a sign is in the wrong font, or we need another report to confirm that the previous report was in fact a report…
we’re almost there.
