Outer ring road reveal raises new concerns
The long-awaited Bunbury Outer Ring Road has struck perhaps its biggest nerve yet with a briefing session by Main Roads WA last week sparking concern.
City of Bunbury staff and councillors were shown the preferred alignment for the northern section of the road for the first time.
The city’s business community was also presented with the proposed designs at a Bunbury Geographe Chamber of Commerce and Industry breakfast.
It is understood the reveal raised more questions than answers.
Mayor Gary Brennan has been a vocal advocate for the project in the past, but after the briefing has expressed his first major concerns.
“The proposed design – it’s fair to say – needs to be re-worked and I am liaising with (Bunbury MLA) Don Punch and there is general agreement that does need to happen,” Mr Brennan said.
“What we want is quite simple, we want the Forrest Highway access into Bunbury to be the primacy of all design intent and the connection between Forrest Highway and the Bunbury Outer Ring Road to be a secondary consideration in the design.
“The proposal at the moment does not achieve that goal.”
The need to reduce traffic, heavy vehicle congestion and bottlenecking into Bunbury has in the past out-weighed concerns over visitors bypassing the city altogether.
But the preferred alignment, which starts north of Raymond Road in Australind and links with Boyanup-Picton Road near Dardanup, suggests Bunbury is not the “primacy” destination.
The Western Australian Planning Commission has supported the alignment.
Mr Brennan said Main Roads had “a bit of work to do” and maintaining Bunbury as the primacy destination was “not negotiable”.
Bunbury MLA Don Punch said it was too early for people to be concerned.
“I understand there are some people expressing concern regarding the northern interchange … I encourage them to engage with the process and provide their thoughts to the BORR team,” Mr Punch said.
“I hope people see this preliminary design phase of the project as an opportunity to constructively participate in the process and not simply react to an individual element that is still in the design process.”
Mr Brennan said he still “firmly” believed the project was worthwhile, but needed work.
“What I am confident about is there will be a design which will be worked up by Main Roads and which will be acceptable to Bunbury which maintains Bunbury is the primacy destination and the Bunbury Outer Ring Road deviates as the secondary consideration,” he said.
The southern alignment near Gelorup is still being investigated.
See Main Roads’ response here.
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