Spotswood and South Kingsville residents have formed a lobby group to fight the possibility of four-storey-high freeway flyovers being built close to their homes.
Transurban is considering five design options for its $5.5 billion Western Distributor tollway, which will create a new truck route to Melbourne’s port and widen the West Gate Freeway to 12 lanes from the M80 to Williamstown Road.
Simon Birch, the Spotswood representative on Transurban’s community liaison group, said members of the newly-formed Spotswood/South Kingsville Western Distributor Residents Group were opposed to several design options under consideration.
Mr Birch spoke at a community meeting attended by several Hobsons Bay councillors in Spotswood last Thursday.
“There are a couple of non-negotiables,” he said.
“The short tunnel is objected to, as are the Hyde Street off-ramp options 3, 4 and 5: they’ve got an on-ramp to the freeway from Hyde Street and they go far too close to residents, Scienceworks museum, a kindergarten and the recreational area in Spotswood.
“If they go for the short tunnel, there’s a flyover: at the Williamstown Road interchange it would start going up and over the West Gate Freeway towards Yarraville.
“There could be more noise.
“Current noise levels are not acceptable because there’s no noise barrier all the way along from Williamstown Road towards the city.
“That has quite a big impact on residents along The Avenue, which is one of the closest streets.
“That’s not acceptable as it currently is, so an extra two lanes each side of the freeway will create more noise.”
Mr Birch said the group agreed on the long tunnel option but there was significant concern about how on-ramps on the south side of the freeway would impact on the neighbourhood.
Hobsons Bay mayor Peter Hemphill said Thursday’s meeting confirmed some councillors’ views that Transurban had not consulted enough on the Western Distributor project and the process was being rushed.
He said government representatives had agreed to attend another community meeting at Spotswood-Kingsville RSL Club at 6pm on Wednesday.
