By Asa Wahlquist, Glebe Society representative on the Community Consultative Committee of the new Sydney Fish Market.  Bulletin 9/2023, November

The fallen crane at the new Sydney Fish Market. (Photo: SMH)

Work has recommenced at the new Sydney Fish Market site on Bridge Road, after being halted dramatically when a huge crane jib crashed to the ground. The crash which occurred on 28 September, sent pedestrians and workers running and reverberated across Glebe. Miraculously the huge crane jib fell entirely within the Fish Market site, missing the footpath along Bridge Road by a couple of metres. One worker suffered a back injury and was taken to hospital. He was released after several days and is now recuperating at home.

The site was evacuated immediately and all work on the site ceased for three weeks as SafeWork NSW and Multiplex, the company building the Fish Market, investigated the cause of the crane’s collapse.

The crane that crashed was one of three tower cranes on the site. The two cranes left standing have been thoroughly checked and the prohibition on their use was lifted on 17 October, allowing some workers to return to the site.  

Multiplex, SafeWork NSW and Infrastructure NSW, the body that oversees the planning and construction on the site, are now investigating how to manage the safe removal of the jib. Once it is removed the next major problem will be how to replace it. 

The collapsed crane was the first of the tower cranes. The first and second cranes were installed in November last year. The third was in place by May this year. The cranes were barged in and took three days to set up. The building is being erected around the cranes: the cabin sits at 33 metres above mean sea level, and above the level of the eventual roofline of the new Fish Market.   

According to a report in the Sydney Morning Herald, a spokesperson from the construction union the CFMEU claimed ‘a connection pin at the luff rope termination point dislodged, causing the boom to fall’.   

Road works on Bridge Road to install services for the new Sydney Fish Market have continued throughout the shut down.

The new Sydney Fish Market was scheduled to open next year. The three-week shut down, and the current reduced level of work, are expected to delay its completion.  The cost of the Fish Market was estimated in 2019 – the most recent estimate – to be $750 million. It is now undoubtedly higher, due to the inflation of the past four years, the pandemic, the inevitable cost overruns of all large public infrastructures and, now, the cost of removing and replacing crane one.

Multiplex are planning a “three day retrieval process” to remove the collapsed crane jib, starting Friday 27 October.