When the valley’s councillors unanimously supported the awarding of two contracts to reseal the Clarence Valley Regional Airport’s tarmac, a question posed by the mayor hinted that a similar outcome might be found for McLachlan Park. In April this year, councillors rejected tenders for the runway’s repaving. Subsequently, council staff separated aspects of the airport upgrade works and called for new tenders. During questions on the matter, the mayor, Richie Williamson, asked works and civil director Troy Anderson a question: “Isn’t it true that these two projects … have been before council; we advertised for tenders; the tenders were expensive; we then resolved to negotiate with the tenders and the price is now before us: is that true?” Troy Anderson: “Through you Mr Mayor; partly. It’s very much like that; exactly, we had the whole lot packaged up; we were concerned with the rates that were provided. “There was inconsistency with the rates between all the tenderers; we sought some information from the tenderers, and then decided to break the tenders up into discreet packages. “Hence, that’s what’s before us at the moment.” Mr Anderson gave similar advice to councillors regarding the non acceptance of the McLachlan Park tenders, when he said: “There are some items … that we wish to clarify … where council can work with the selected tenderer to provide certain items or other pieces of equipment to try and adjust the price. “[We] will also be having a look at some individual items associated with the scope [of the project] so we can add or retract those from the scope of works that will be presented to council for adoption.” Meanwhile, Clarence Valley Council accepted tenders from Bitupave Ltd to spray seal the runway at a cost of $469,084 and to make “heavy patching” repairs to the runway at a cost of $208,493.45. The available budget to resurface the runway is $825,000. The general manager has been authorised to approve any contract variations of up to 10 per cent of for each of the resealing contracts. The airport’s upgrade is being funded by a $1.06million federal government Community Development Grant and $1.06 million from the state government’s Local Infrastructure Renewal Scheme. A tender to upgrade the airport’s lighting has previously been awarded. Tenders have not yet been called for the upgrade of the terminal.