MELBOURNE will become the world’s container storage park and surrounding municipalities will bear the increased truck traffic if the $1.6billion Webb Dock expansion proceeds, a community meeting heard last week.
People from Maribyrnong, Hobsons Bay and Port Melbourne attended a community meeting at Williamstown Sailing Club on Thursday night.
Maribyrnong councillor Martin Zakharov told the meeting the truck glut was a major concern.
“We already handle in Yarraville 10,000 trucks a day in Somerville Road and Francis Street, and that’s only between six in the morning and eight in the evening, so it’s fairly intense.
“I can assure you, I live on Somerville Road and I hear the containers on the dock every night. As soon as the traffic dies down I can hear those containers landing, so we already have those issues in Maribyrnong.”
Williamstown resident of 55 years Bill Pride urged the community to come up with a strategy to “stop the thing growing out of proportion”.
“Why should we be a storage area for the rest of the world for containers? Surely we can turn around as a community and say to Port of Melbourne, ‘Look, you’re not going to store containers there. Store them somewhere else or make the ships take them away’,” Mr Pride said.
He said truck movement in some areas was set to double.
“Surely the council or the community can do something about the blasted trucks coming down Francis Street in Yarraville. Is that right that 6000 trucks go down there a day. Are we going to increase that again?
“There’s got to be restrictions placed somewhere on trucks. There’s got to be restrictions placed on containers.”
Residents opposed to the expansion plan have vowed to form an alliance to fight “political vandalism”, saying the development will make Melbourne lose its place as the world’s most liveable city.
Williamstown resident Denis Weily said Melbourne could lose its ranking as the world’s most liveable city.
Mr Weily said that by 2020, Webb Dock would be handling 6.3million containers, 86per cent of which would be transported by truck.
The planned alliance will include municipalities, including the City of Melbourne, and single-issue lobby groups including Save Williamstown and Maribyrnong Truck Action Group.
