WestConnex adds insult to injury in St Peters
Thursday, 2 August 2018
WestConnex has reneged on an agreement to design and construct the Peter Bulger wetlands in accordance with the Camdenville Park master plan.
In 2016, NSW Roads and Maritime Services (RMS) announced that it would compulsorily lease approximately one third of Camdenville Park for the construction of WestConnex.
Council subsequently negotiated with RMS and the company established by the State Government to build WestConnex, Sydney Motorway Corporation (SMC), to implement the Camdenville Park master plan once WestConnex is completed in 2019.
Council and the community had been working on the Camdenville Park master plan since 2014.
Council has now seen the designs presented by WestConnex – and they are not in keeping with the master plan.
The restoration of Camdenville Park was to include constructing a wetland to improve water quality and biodiversity, a BMX track, and connecting accessible paths between the Bedwin Road and May Street corner.
The WestConnex design does not include the wetland, the path network or the landscape setting envisaged by the original master plan.
To add insult to injury, a new motorway wall constructed by WestConnex is imposing and the proposed path design doesn’t allow room for screen planting to soften the impact of the wall.
Community member and friend of Peter Bulger, Patrick ‘Paddy’ Byrne, said, “It is shameful that WestConnex have reneged on their earlier commitment”.
He said the original vision was of a flourishing wetland teeming with fauna and flora, with meandering, raised walkways – and not the “huge concrete wall that WestConnex currently plans on leaving behind”.
He added that the WestConnex plans were “hurtful to the memory of the late Peter Bulger. And I fear, a missed opportunity for WestConnex to go some way to make amends for the immense physical and psychological damage the toll road has visited upon the local community”.
Keen environmentalist and active community member, Peter Bulger was a long-time St Peters resident who had a vision of turning a local “eyesore drainage point” into a wetland.
Mr Bulger died of an aggressive brain cancer in 2013.
For more background or a timeline on the Camdenville Park master plan, a print quality image, or an interview with Patrick Byrne, please contact the Communication team