Perth Voice Interactive

HALF-A-MILLION dollars will be spent ripping out cobblestones on the roads around the Northbridge Piazza and replacing them with asphalt.

The cobblestoned surface has been a headache for Perth city council from almost the day they were laid as part of the multi-million-dollar piazza project.

Back in 2011 the Voice reported the cobblestones were splitting and lifting but the companies which laid them refused to accept liability, saying the glue they’d used was supposed to be up to the job. A stone expert found the stones were too smooth for the glue to stick to properly and expansion joints had been incorrectly made.

Now the piazza will be surrounded by a less flashy (but cheaper) asphalt finish with a “decorative finish”.

It’ll take six weeks and an eye-watering $443,865 to fix, starting around the end of February.