HUME council has called on Melbourne Airport Corporation to show
greater leadership in getting vital transport infrastructure dollars
allocated to the city’s north.
“There needs to be more certainty around the capacity of key
freight routes [M80, Hume Freeway, Hume Highway] to support the
projected growth and more clarity on the timing of the critical Outer
Metropolitan Ring Road,” a council report says.
“Melbourne Airport needs to show more leadership in its demands to
all levels of government to identify and deliver solutions to meet the
increase in demand for travel to and around the airport.”
At its meeting in Sunbury last week, councillors accepted the
council officers’ report and approved a Hume response to the airport’s
20-year development masterplan, but not without some reservations over
local impacts.
Cr Helen Patsikatheodorou was a lone voice against the council submission, saying it didn’t address local concerns.
“Our communities of Dallas, Gladstone Park and Westmeadows all
think the new runway will affect their quality of life,” Cr
Patsikatheodorou said. “They urge the council to be more active and
louder on how we advocate on their behalf.”
Concerns were also voiced that the airport’s development blueprint
did not focus enough on existing congestion and transport issues around
the airport and through to the Melbourne CBD.
“The Tullamarine freeway is bedlam at the best of times,” Cr Patsikatheodorou said.
Cr Jack Medcraft said a Bulla bypass needed to be the top priority.
The council report says the airport’s masterplan does not
highlight the importance of securing capital spending on integrated road
and rail projects as matters of highest priority.
The masterplan is proposing a third runway at Australia’s only
24-7 airport and the development of major retail and commercial
precincts around the airport. Its proposal for a rail link to the
Melbourne CBD is the cornerstone of its transport strategy, putting it
at odds with the Napthine government’s push to prioritise the
controversial $8 billion east-west road tunnel, the legislation for
which goes before State Parliament this week.
Speaking at a post-Ford economic development summit in
Broadmeadows recently, airport chief executive Chris Woodruff said the
masterplan represented “the most exciting period since the airport was
built”.
It predicts passenger numbers will more than double to 64
million in the next 20 years, while freight handling facilities, already
accounting for a third of all air freight nationally, will position the
airport as the logistics centre of “the freight state”.
Mr Woodruff told the forum the proposed rail link depended on the
go-ahead of the Melbourne Metro Rail project, which already has its
business case ticked off by Infrastructure Australia – unlike the state
government’s tunnel.
Airport spokeswoman Anna Gillett later told the Weekly:
“We understand the government’s decision to build the Melbourne Metro
tunnel before the airport rail link, but we’d like the timeline for the
airport rail link to be accelerated.”
Ms Gillett said about 40 submissions had so far been received on
the airport masterplan, although more should be received by tomorrow’s
deadline.
