Balla Balla Ward councillor Colin Butler and Casey mayor Kevin Bradford look for trucks on Clyde Road. Cr Butler said trucks would not use an upgraded Clyde Road in preference to the shorter route through Cranbourne township.By Jim Mynard
BALLA Balla Ward councillor Colin Butler believes the BerwickFive Ways route along Clyde Road will never become a traffic bypass for Cranbourne township.
Cr Butler said upgrades along Clyde Road would not be finished within the next 15 years.
He said when the road was completed only about one per cent of trucks would turn off the South Gippsland Highway at Five Ways to follow the route.
“The other 99 per cent will go on through Cranbourne,” he said.
Cr Butler was speaking in support of Casey mayor Kevin Bradford, who said the Casey campaign for a Cranbourne bypass along Cameron Street was going strongly.
Cr Butler said trucks would take the shortest route.
“One Lang Lang sand miner has 60 trucks on the road,” he said.
“Many will be heading for the Dandenong South area and will not divert along Clyde Road.
“To say that Clyde Road will be the Cranbourne bypass is a fallacy.”
Cr Bradford said intensity of the campaign would increase as the state election date approached.
“We are hearing considerable misinformation about using the Cameron Street route, but plans are already in hand to upgrade one large section of the street,” he said.
“Residents in that area will be subject to a duplicated road in any event.”
Cr Bradford said trucks would turn down the Cameron Street route even if a full bypass was not built.
“They will use it anyway,” he said.
Cr Bradford said people had just seen from reports that Berwick would be getting a beautiful streetscape.
“Berwick people will have a safe and happy shopping centre,” he said.
“Why can’t Cranbourne have the same?”
Casey manger of communications Ros Britz said in a report to the 21 March council meeting that the council’s Cranbourne bypass proposal was for a 1.2 kilometre road from the South Gippsland Highway on to Cameron Street, and an upgrade of Cameron Street to provide a new duplicated road between Camms Road and the South Gippsland Highway.
Cameron Street heads south from the highway from near Cranbourne Racecourse, and then meets Narre Warren Cranbourne Road at Sladen Street.
The council believes a proposed VicRoadsowned bypass easement from near the Camms Road intersection across to the South Gippsland Highway should be developed as a bypass link.
However, the Government through VicRoads maintains that Clyde Road from Five Ways to Berwick should be used as the Cranbourne bypass.
