Fremantle city council has rejected Main Roads’ plan for widening High Street, after councillors claimed Main Roads staff had reneged on agreed concessions and not consulted properly with local residents.

Cr Sam Wainwright says the council was being asked to rubber-stamp a six-lane proposal that was almost identical to the state government’s initial and widely opposed proposal in 2011.

He claims concessions made by Main Roads staff during informal negotiations with mayor Brad Pettitt, and councillors Dave Coggin and Ingrid Waltham had been taken off the table and were not in the design presented to the community.

“All the important decisions have been made and the community’s role is just to choose the colour of the paint on the sound walls or something trivial,” Cr Wainwright says. “To make things worse Main Roads has been insisting to residents that council has endorsed their proposal in its current form when it has not. In essence the department is proposing something very similar to the so-called option four that council rejected back in 2011.”

by STEPHEN POLLOCK