KOOWEERUP residents are crossing their fingers, hoping the State Government will bring them good news when it announces its 2009/10 budget on Tuesday.
They have been lobbying strongly for a Kooweerup Bypass – a piece of infrastructure which they say is vital in ensuring the safety of motorists and locals.
“We’ve virtually exhausted everything we can do,” Kooweerup Township Committee chairman Ray Brown said.
The Pakenham Gazette began its ‘Koowee Bypass or Bust’ campaign in January to support residents in their quest to get the project rolling.
The campaign has highlighted the extent of the town’s traffic woes including: trucks rolling through the town at a rate of 70 an hour, frustrated parents taking detours down side streets at school pick-up time, the safety risk to schoolchildren crossing Station Street and the dangerousness of the Rossiter Road and Station Street intersection.
Mr Brown feared it would take a human sacrifice for the government to commit to the long-awaited project.
“We’ve highlighted all of the dangerous areas and there is little more we can do without radical action,” he said.
Port Ward councillor Stuart Halligan had similar concerns.
“The whole project is vital and based on one thing – the safety of the community,” he said.
“We don’t want to see someone maimed or killed – sometimes that’s what it takes for something like that to be brought forward.”
But Mr Brown said there was a glimmer of hope for locals, with the State Government looking at spending up big on infrastructure projects in the economic downturn and the council’s funding commitment in its 2009/2010 budget.
Council chief executive Garry McQuillan and some council officers also recently visited Roads Minister Tim Pallas to push the long-awaited project.
A spokesman for the State Government said Spring Street was finalising the upcoming budget, and couldn’t yet say whether funding for a Kooweerup Bypass would part of it.
Opposition leader Ted Baillieu will tour Cardinia today (Wednesday) beginning with a public meeting on the corner of Rossiter Road and Station Street at 11am to discuss the long-awaited Kooweerup Bypass project.
He will also visit the site of the proposed Cardinia Road Station and Officer to discuss the Growth Areas Infrastructure Contribution scheme.
– Melissa Grant
