Celebrating our 50th Anniversary
Bennett + Bennett recently celebrated our 50th Anniversary on the Gold Coast and were lucky enough to have one of the founding fathers, Ted Bennett, attend and speak at the event.
Ted reminisced about the early days of Bennett + Bennett and going into business with his brother Lin. He joked about how Lin had bought the business before he had even asked him to join.
Ted described the technology advances in Surveying since 1968 and had the perfect analogy for these advances:
- The 1st 25 years (1968-1992) was like the transition from horse and cart to the motor vehicle;
- And the 2nd 25 years (1992-2018) was like the transition between the motor vehicle to the space shuttle.
He also spoke about starting out in a new business and how important it was for them to deliver on their promises to clients, have a strong work ethic and be experts at their craft. These attributes are still part of the fabric of Bennett + Bennett and we’ve been very lucky to continue on this legacy established by Ted and Lin Bennett 50 years ago.
Highlights & Awarded Works
Surveying / Spatial
Over the past quarter we have been fortunate to secure several large, long term projects including, but not limited to:
- Brisbane Metro – surveying underground services identified by 1300Locate on the initial stages of the project.
- Gold Coast Light Rail Stage 3 – secured the contract to undertake a full survey of the proposed project. Our clients, Transport and Main Roads (TMR) have chosen to be brave on this project and requested us to undertake a full laser scan of the proposed route. TMR have seen the value of a point cloud at the start of a project based on experience on other projects.
- Barneson Boulevarde & Tiger Brennan Drive – we recently secured the surveying services contract with Territoria Civil to construct the upgrade in Darwin. This is a great project to be involved in and demonstrates what a diverse company we’ve become, working on one of the most important infrastructure projects in the NT.
Presentations / Highlights
- Linda Tait (Senior Town Planner, Brisbane) recently presented a paper at the Queensland Environmental Law Association Conference (QELA) on Urban Security Response to Vehicle Related Attacks including data sharing, BIM, landscape responses and planning processes.
- John Morwood (Town Planning Principle, Brisbane) recently presented a paper on Aged Care at the Leading Age Services Australia conference in Sydney. His paper, Changing the Rules – Housing Affordability for Seniors, was very well received and prompted a lot of discussion. Leading Age Services Australia (LASA) is the national peak body representing and supporting providers of age services across residential care, home care and retirement living.
- Robert McCabe (Cadastral Manager) presented as part of a national SSSI Webinar. ”Rob’s presentation was on the Implementation of Mixed-use Developments – Real world examples. It discussed the creation of a typical mixed-use development (retail and residential) by registration of a volumetric subdivision and BMS, followed by the registration of a building format plan and CMS”
In addition to the projects listed above, the QLD State government has committed $45b in infrastructure funding over the next 4 years and Brisbane City has announced $1b in funding to the Brisbane Metro project for next year. We are going to see a tremendous amount of infrastructure work being undertaken in Brisbane and Bennett + Bennett are proud to be part of this.
HxGN Live 2018
Two of our star Associates, Ash Naidu (Brisbane) and Matt Strahley (Northern Territory) recently attended the Hexagon Live event in Las Vegas. It is is a yearly event organised to showcase the latest surveying instruments from supplier Leica, and for surveyors from around the world to present interesting projects they’ve worked on.
I have personally been debriefed by both Ash and Matt, they assure me it was all business with very little play in Las Vegas… hmmm 🙂
Mark Billsborough – Managing Director
