Hobart's Macquarie Point Development Corporation spent hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars on a bike path — only for half of it to be demolished for remediation works about two years later.
The "interim cycleway" opened in late 2018 and cost $700,000.
In a letter sent to the corporation's board in March, a Macquarie Point Development Corporation employee complained about "numerous decisions made by the chief executive with respect to interim activation" that have been "crippling of the Corporation's cashflow and ability to effectively manage permanent development".
The letter said this included the cycleway, which had been "developed knowing remediation was required underneath".
The Corporation's CEO, Mary Massina, has strenuously denied any and all allegations in the letter, which also included allegations of bullying.
Under the Macquarie Point Development Corporation Act 2012, the Corporation is required to "encourage and provide… appropriate temporary and longer-term use of the site" and the Corporation says the cycleway was one of several interim developments providing activation on the site while permanent development was pursued.
The cycleway ran from near the Hobart Regatta Grounds grandstand through to Davey Street, with another section forking off and running through the Macquarie Point site to Evans Street.
It was temporarily closed in mid--2020 for three months to allow for remediation and construction of a connector road and service infrastructure next to the bike path.
In a statement, a spokesman for the Corporation said contamination was found to be "more extensive than initially advised by our environmental consultants" in July 2020, with sections underneath the cycleway found to be impacted.
At that time, the Corporation closed the cycleway until further notice due to public safety.
Last year, the Corporation received $78 million from the state government so that remediation and civil works could be brought forward.
The spokesman said without those works, the permanent development of areas called The District and The Park would have stalled.
Most of the section from the Regatta Grounds to Davey Street remains open for bike access, but the cycleway through to Evans St has largely been ripped up.
The spokesman said the interim cycleway would be reinstated as part of "the Park" development, which the Corporation describes as the centrepiece of Mac Point.
Set up in 2012, the corporation was given $50 million in federal funds to clean up the Macquarie Point site, which in its history has served as a parade ground, gas works, slaughter yards, orphan school, lumber yard, railway depot and sewage treatment plant.
The original Aboriginal inhabitants called the area Nibberloone or Linghe, until it was named Fosbrook's Point by the British colonialists around 1806 — after which Governor Lachlan Macquarie renamed the area after himself in 1811.
