Connect - 26 February 2021

Discovering 83 Pirie Street

Many in our city offices have been eagerly watching the beginnings of our new building through their windows but now everyone can get more detail about how the final product will look.

When completed, the new office accommodation at 83 Pirie Street will house Department for Infrastructure and Transport CBD staff and Attorney General’s Department CBD Planning staff currently located at 101 Grenfell Street, 77 Grenfell Street, 50 Flinders Street, Roma Mitchell House and 1/28 Leigh Street.

Staff will be located over 10 consecutive floors (levels 4-13), resulting in enhanced opportunities for collaboration.

Part of the virtual foyer view

Helping with COVID hygiene

The past year of dealing with COVID-19 has revealed local heroes in all sorts of areas, including our Central Services and Travel team, which is responsible for delivering COVID hygiene supplies across our vast departmental network.

Two staff members, Lee Smith and Glyn Money, took on the role of handling supplies for all metropolitan and regional sites and they have delivered an impressive 52,000 items so far.

One grateful recipient wrote: “Knowing there was one place to go for supplies was excellent and regular contact and reminders to order is fabulous. All in all an excellent service.”

The team produced a short video highlighting its great work and I encourage you to take a look at a behind-the-scenes view of this outstanding achievement.

Collaborating on artwork

As planning continues for the Granite Island Causeway Project, important collaboration is taking place behind the scenes around the creation of artwork that acknowledges the strong links to the area held by its traditional owners.

The Ngarrindjeri Aboriginal Corporation has been instrumental in the engagement of all local Ramindjeri Ngarrindjeri artists engaged for the project, with multiple Public Realm Design Workshops under way to address opportunities for a deck pattern, interpretive signage and urban design features on the causeway and landings.

We look forward to seeing what these workshops deliver and to honouring the story telling behind them.

Ramindjeri Ngarrindjeri artists with Cox Architects, McConnell Dowell and department representatives

Delivering in a big way

Congratulations to the team on the Regency Road to Pym Street Project for the successful installation of the pedestrian and cyclist overpass that provides important east-west connectivity between Torrens Road and Regency Road.

This was another massive undertaking that saw the 95-tonne bridge moved from Bowhill Engineering in the State’s Murray Region through Truro and Mallala, before arriving safely and on schedule at the R2P project site.

The impressive structure spans 57 metres over the North-South Motorway and South Road surface roads.

The R2P pedestrian and cyclist overpass

Marking International Women’s Day

International Women’s Day will be marked on Monday March 8, recognising how far we have come towards gender equality, but also how far we still have to go.

The theme for IWD2021 is #womenlead, Women in Leadership: Achieving an Equal Future in a COVID-19 World, which celebrates the efforts by women and girls around the world in shaping a more equal future and recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Our Department continues to encourage more women to take on leadership roles and development opportunities and I am proud of our role in recognising and valuing women in the workforce.

I encourage all Divisions to celebrate IWD2021 in a way that recognises the achievements of women in work teams and in the broader community, while respecting social distancing requirements.

To find out more about IWD2021, visit the International Women's Day website.

Fixing flood damage

Our Road Network Maintenance Delivery Zone 4 team is continuing to work closely with maintenance contractor SA Road Services to deal with the many challenges caused by regular, significant and consecutive rain events across the Outback.

Significant flood damage occurred to roads in the Flinders Ranges and Eastern Pastoral areas in late January, with falls in some areas of more than 120mm, following on from similar events in October and December. This was compounded by falls of up to 100mm across the North West pastoral area last Friday.

The photos below show how much damage can be caused by these events, and how much water moves across this Outback country. Truly amazing to see, and an equally amazing recovery process required for the unsealed road network. Those involved should be proud of the work they are doing.

Keeping leaders up to date

Ongoing training and equipping of leaders is crucial to every large organisation, and as a department we have a firm commitment to doing it well.

To that end it was good to see 46 nominated leaders from across the department gather for the first of our Leadership Superskills workshops this year, which will run from February until May as six half-day training sessions.

The sessions cover a range of areas to equip managers and leaders, including training in understanding and leading others, fostering high performance team culture, engaging stakeholders, and leading through change. We wish the participants well as they commit to this further education.

Managers and leaders at the first Leadership Superskills workshop

Friday Flashback

Far from the alternately soothing or action-packed images that pack most tourism advertisements in 2021, attracting tourists to South Australia seems to have taken a more matter of fact, though charming, approach in the 1940s. Take a look at the video below to see what we mean. You won’t hear elocution like that today.