PALMYRA folk are cock-a-hoop with the announcement a key leg of the Perth Freight Link will go under Fremantle instead of past their homes and businesses.
The previous overland route barrelled north on Stock Road before turning left onto Leach Highway/High Street: road widening would have seen houses and businesses, including D’Orsogna, bulldozed and anti-noise walls erected.
Instead, the 3.3km tunnel planned to go from the Stock-Winterfold roads intersection and the junction of Stirling Highway and High Street in Fremantle—completely spares Palmyra.
Prime minister Malcolm Turnbull sealed the deal this week by pledging $260 million.
Developer Finbar will also be delighted: it is set to redevelop the soon-to-be-vacated 2.7 hectares Golden Eggs’ site that borders Leach Highway and Stock Road into a $109 million 254-apartment complex. It wouldn’t have relished the impact of an even busier freight intersection nearby.
But Fremantle folk aren’t as happy. Port city mayor Brad Pettitt says the project is effectively a “gold-plated tunnel to nowhere” because once traffic emerges at Stirling Highway, “there’s no effective infrastructure in place to get trucks across the river at the end of it”. “That needs to be in place before a tunnel can even be considered,” he says. “There is also a lack of detail and many unanswered questions, including will there need to be venting stacks in Hilton, Beaconsfield and White Gum Valley?”
Freo councillor Sam Wainwright represents Hilton ward—near where the tunnel starts. He says locals are concerned about emissions and tunnel impacts on the water table, subsidence and property values: “There is an aged care home, a nursing home and two schools near the proposed Winterfold entrance. If there is only going to be venting at either end of the tunnel what will it be like for locals?”
Melville mayor Russell Aubrey is delighted. A staunch supporter of the freight link and its earlier iteration, the Fremantle eastern bypass, he believes the decision to build a tunnel was made with the interests of Palmyra residents in mind.
“The $260 million injection from the prime minister and the federal government clearly shows the state government’s determination to avoid impacting residents in the city of Melville, especially those in Palmyra,” he says.
“This was the only alternative to save homes and businesses in Palmyra.
“I have been campaigning for the past 15 years to improve Melville’s major infrastructure — in particular Leach Highway, which is currently functioning as a totally inappropriate default freight route.”
The federal Coalition government has agreed to pay 80 per cent of the tunnel cost.
The tunnel will add $326 million to the Perth Freight Link project cost, which now tops $1.9 billion.
