Kooweerup bypass campaigners Caroline Roff, Stuart Halligan, Gwen Lengerdorf and Geoff Stokes are preparing to launch a website in a bid to secure government funds for the long-awaited project. 32777
By Melissa Grant
ARE you enjoying the hold-up?
That’s one of the questions a special sub-group of the Kooweerup Township Committee will be putting to motorists driving through the swamp, as they again ramp up their campaign for a Kooweerup bypass.
Signs will be erected through the town directing people to a website in a bid to pressure state and federal governments to fund the long-awaited project.
Kooweerup Township Committee secretary Geoff Stokes, also a member of the recently formed bypass sub-committee, was hopeful the website would attract thousands of hits.
He said it would be advertised in an amusing way on the town’s roadsides.
“Imagine being stuck on Sybella Avenue and you see the sign ‘Are you enjoying this holiday or this hold-up?’” he said.
“Or ‘Do you know why you’re stuck here’?”
As previously reported in the Gazette, thousands of vehicles clog Rossiter Road, Station Street and Sybella Avenue each day, with the traffic nightmare spiralling out of control on public holiday weekends.
Mr Stokes said the website may also feature a blog as well as on Twitter, so motorists could tweet about traffic chaos.
“It adds up to lots of people being able to vent their frustrations,” he said.
The website project, which will be launched in the coming weeks, is the first of many that the sub-committee will undertake.
“Lots of other things came up as to what we could do,” Mr Stokes said. “We decided to do one at a time and do this website business first.”
Members of the sub-committee, elected last week, are councillor Stuart Halligan, Kooweerup Township Committee chairman Ray Brown, Frank Cramari, Gwen Lengerdorf, Caroline Roff and Mr Stokes.
Its formation comes just months after the project missed out on funding in both the state and federal 2009/10 budgets.
Mr Stokes said Kooweerup residents were still fired up as ever about the long-awaited project, expected to cost about $14 million.
“We are going to make it an election issue,” he said.“We certainly haven’t given up – the traffic hasn’t given up, I can tell you.”
