Tyre plant finds a new home after Jandakot site falls through

A revolutionary $20 million tyre recycling facility will be built in the Meridian Park industrial estate at Neerabup, after a commercial property deal turned sour at its original Jandakot Airport site.

A wrangle between CTS Tyre Recycling and Jandakot Airport Holdings - which threatens to end in court proceedings - has seen the innovative tyre recycler move to the DevelopmentWA facility near Wanneroo.

The original plans had been celebrated with an elaborate ground-breaking ceremony in August last year, after two years of negotiations between the airport, Dexus as the leasing agent and the family-owned CTS.

The recycling unit was praised for its plans to create a state-of-the-art tyre recycling plant to process waste tyres into crumb rubber, tyre-derived products, reusable high-tensile steel wire and reusable textile, following bans on the export of tyre waste.

But CTS claimed that five months after the public celebration, JAH told it for the first time that the plans would have to be considered as part of a major development plan application.

CTS claims it was told the review process would take 9 to 18 months, and there was no guarantee of success.

"The situation came as a complete surprise to the company given that both JAH and Dexus, during almost two years of negotiation, gave it no indication of any requirement for an MDP application," said a statement from the CTS.

"Both JAH and Dexus attended the ground-breaking ceremony that launched the facility on 12th August, supposedly to allow construction to begin shortly thereafter."

Despite the setback, CTS has secured freehold land at the new Meridian Park industrial estate in Neerabup in a deal valued at $4.8-million. It takes total investment to more than $20-million for the new facility.

The new property is larger than the Jandakot site and is positioned 2km from Wanneroo Road and 4km off the Mitchell Freeway.

The site area is 2.29ha, or almost 23,000sqm, across two adjacent lots and offers more hard stand and storage space than the original Jandakot site.

CTS managing director Leigh Cometti expects the facility to open this year.

The recycling plant includes an Australian-first pre-shredder that enables the recycling of off-the-road tyres used on mining trucks. Traditionally, these tyres were too big to recycle once worn out and were instead buried in mine pits.

The facility will process 30,000 tonne of rubber, which is more the total volume of tyre waste in WA affected by Australia's waste export ban.

Dexus and Jandakot Airport Holdings were contacted for comment.