Claims Rozelle interchange won’t affect residents ‘laughable’

Friday 27 September, 2019

Inner West Council has this morning hit out at absurd claims from the NSW Government’s Westconnex Project Director that the Rozelle Interchange will have no negative impacts on residents living near the Interchange.

Council has written to the NSW Government, formally objecting to modifications to Stage 3b M4/5 Link Rozelle Interchange overpass designs. The Government has now released the maps showing the final alignment of the Stage 3B tunnels.

Inner West Mayor Darcy Byrne said that the government’s claims that there would be no adverse impacts on residents were laughable and absurd.

“To suggest, because residents won’t be able to actually hear the cars rumbling underneath them, that this tunneling will cause no impacts is plainly ridiculous.

“The plans indicate that there are some places where the tunneling will be far shallower than 35 metres.”

“Homeowners across the area know about the cracked walls brought about by previous WestConnex construction. They are now understandably concerned that the massive excavation for the interchange will damage their homes.”

With traffic impacts also hitting local suburbs hard, Mayor Byrne called on the Government to take action against traffic impacts now, and implement the traffic improvement study carried out by Council in 2016.

“Already, while the interchange site is being established, large swaths of Rozelle, Lilyfield and Annandale have been turned into a permanent carpark.

“We warned the government more than a year ago that opening of the M4 tunnel, combined with construction of Rozelle Interchange, would lead to traffic chaos – which is precisely what is happening right now.”

The study can be found in the WestConnex Local Area Improvement Strategy Final Report 

The long list of requests from Inner West Council that have been ignored or gone unanswered include:

• Repeated contact with the NSW Government over loss of parking and the failure to provide any onsite parking for workers as part of Stage 3 of WestConnex – with no result.
• Calls for funding for a temporary resident parking scheme ignored by the Government.
  
• No response from Roads & Maritime Services (RMS) on Council’s Local Area Improvement Strategy (LAIS), despite Council staff meeting with RMS to explain how the LAIS could help RMS progress their WestConnex Road Network Performance Plan, a requirement of the project’s conditions of approval
• Several requests for relevant data about traffic impacts on the City West Link, Parramatta Road and adjoining streets following the opening of Stage 1 of WestConnex which have gone unanswered.

The Stage 3B tunnel maps were released yesterday. The maps will enable local residents to identify how the tunnel alignments will affect their properties.

Residents will be able to hover over the map to show tunnel locations and depths under their properties.

Similar maps that are already available for Stages 1, 2 and 3A can be viewed at the WestConnex website