Rushed process
JUST before council elections last year as mayor, I stood in front of two meetings of 100 or more people, who wanted their say about the Horsham Integrated Transport Strategy. The choice to go directly to the community before council endorsement was a deliberate attempt to get better engagement and listen to concerns. Some of the community saw the strategy as a pseudo bypass alternative through Haven and set on a campaign to get council to endorse VicRoads’ option D that we had clearly not agreed with through the extensive planning panel hearing. The strategy was recommended by the planning panel as it saw the logic, put by council, that bypass option D did little to help transport in the short, medium or even long term around Horsham. Also critically important for future planning in Horsham, if we ever hope to get a major government department relocation for our region, was an airport that can grow safely and without impediment. The planning panel wanted both council and VicRoads to do more work before option D got up.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Council did extra work and still did not want option D. VicRoads did not do the extra work, relying on flawed original data.
Council listened to the local experts and rejected the airport master plan as presented by consultants, choosing to leave the old business plan as the reference plan.
With some confusion at the last council meeting, councillors did not endorse the plans as presented by officers, but chose to receive the reports and ask officers to continue with the transport strategy, recognising there was a lot more work to be done before final decisions could be made.
Councillors also chose to reinforce they would not like a bypass to go through Haven. Council also did not want it to impact on the airport. It is a complex situation to explain, but put simply airport expansion to the south makes more sense and is supported by all the local experts. As we have found, VicRoads do not take much notice of councils or local experts. When planning for 25 years into the future, the process should not be rushed. For VicRoads to jump the gun and announce a final route selection before critical work has been completed and during the time when there was no council is simply wrong.
Critical work that has never been done in Horsham includes the commercial impact on the distance out of town for a bypass, with impact on visitation by cars and the unique attraction of accommodation options between Melbourne and Adelaide. Trucks do not stop in Horsham very often.
I want to see the evidence before assuming that a bypass further out of town would be detrimental in any way. So many problems could be solved so easily by not jumping to unjustified conclusions.
HEATHER PHILLIPS
Natimuk
Railway overpass
IMAGINE in Horsham North near the Rasmussen Road railway crossing something like a Wail overpass only bigger, or a Western Highway Burrumbeet overpass-interchange.
Could that ever be good for Horsham?
GREG HUFF
Riverside
Embrace centre
WITH the Werribee council and many local residents there opposing the state government’s plan for a new $268 youth detention centre being built, I say to the Ararat council, pick up the phone to Daniel Andrews and ask him to build it in Ararat.
In a perfect world there would be no need for such a centre, but in reality it is going to be built, so I say why not Ararat?
Ararat is already established as a town with correctional centres and the benefits, particularly economic to the town, I believe far outweigh any risk to the community.
Escapes in the last few years from the medium facility Langi Kal Kal and Corella place, where offenders can basically walk out, are of definite community concern, but more relate to policy and centre management. Escapees have been quickly captured in most cases. Communities like Ararat need infrastructure, investment, transport, jobs and most importantly, people to prosper. Building a new jail in Ararat would provide all that. The flow-on benefits to many aspects within the community are many and would be long lasting. A community rally in Werribee opposing the development saw many protesters come out. Maybe the people of Ararat could have their own rally to encourage it to come to the town.
TREVOR WOLLARD
Taylors Lakes
Highway concerns
THE Ararat Landcare Group has ongoing concerns about VicRoads’ proposed route in the Langi Ghiran area between Buangor and Ararat.
We are not against the ongoing duplication of the highway. Our concerns are both environmental and economic, the latter being the cost of the currently approved southern route, which will involve a great deal of earth moving and the removal of many trees and other native vegetation.
The Landcare group’s much preferred option is to use a widening of the existing route, which will involve much less vegetation clearing and earth moving.
By widening the existing road to meet VicRoads’ criteria and putting a centre barrier in a narrower section (as has been done successfully at Burrumbeet) some millions of taxpayers money will be saved, as well as a great deal of significant native vegetation and small wildlife.
We find VicRoads’ adamant refusal to consider this option very disturbing, especially in light of the huge past errors made in tree count and loss of vegetation and habitat in an earlier section of the new highway.
KEITH LITTLE
Ararat Landcare Group