The next six months will prove pivotal in Newcastle's infrastructure works with construction not only starting on the race track for the Newcastle 500 on Wharf Road, but work on Bathers Way is still ongoing.
The main focus of construction on Wharf Road from today is work on what will be the pits. For the next six months the major works will be disruptive to residents, but after this year it will take only a few weeks to set up the event instead of months of preparation for the track this year.
Major construction work is still underway on the Shortland Esplanade as part of the Bathers Way project in a bid to revitalise the section of coastline, and will see more pedestrian access, the installation of new street lighting, reconstruction fo the retaining wall on the corner of Watt and Church Street, and two-way traffic returned to the section between Watt and Ocean Streets.
Lord Mayor of Newcastle Nuatali Nelmes says the works will be completed by November just when thousands of visitors descend on the city for the race.
"It is a big undertaking in the next six months and there will be disruptions and at the same time we're also still delivering really important components of the Bathers Way that actually doesn't have anything to do with Supercars but it's the time that we're delivering."
With two major projects underway at the same time, there is sure to be some form of disruption, and council say residents have all been given a significant amount of notification and also detailed maps of the changes in and around their streets for both supercars work and council's work in the city.
"Supercars are starting their works projects six months out and it's a pretty tight time frame to deliver not only the work they need to do for Supercars, but we've been quite opportunistic and making sure we're delivering a lot of renewal projects and upgrades to other services and infrastructure in the city at the same time so it is a big undertaking into the next six months and there will be disruptions," said Nuatali Nelmes.
"Every other year, once this work is done there, will be much shorter few weeks of bump in and bump out for the event. So the disruption, and I've said this since we announced that we were bringing supercars to Newcastle, the majority of the disruption will be this year."
