Dear Protectors of Public Lands Victoria Inc. (PPL VIC) Members and Friends   (posted 4 Jun 10)

 

A rally called by Yarra Councillor Stephen Jolly was held on  Saturday 5 June  2010 at Citizens Park (Richmond Oval)t, Richmond.  The theme was the lack of public say in the major developments in suburbs in the Yarra municipality and opposition to the mother-of-all-inappropriate developments on the Yarra River  - the 11 storey massive residential and retail complex on the Honeywell site on Victoria Street, Abbotsford. We would be pleased if you can attend and support us in this David versus Goliath fight. 

 

PPL VIC and Yarra River Action Alliance are appealing at VICAT.  As legal costs are astronomical (the case will go for a week or so altogether ) we are mounting an appeal for assistance. Donations can be made by direct payment to a specially designated MECU bank account  - Protectors of Public Lands Victoria Inc. Fighting Fund  BSB 803 140 Account No 12012290.  For enquiries ring MECU on 132888. Or send to PPL VIC PO Box 197 Parkville 3052 with details of name and address. We need this as at the end of the case if we have a balance of funds we can refund donors. See Yarra River Action Alliance website for details and explanation of our campaign at http://yarrariveractionalliance.com/  plus contacts.    

 

Regards Julianne Bell Secretary PPL VIC 4 June 2010

Representatives of Friends of Banyule and Protectors of Public Lands met on 20 April with representatives of VicRoads North East Link project team. The meeting was arranged at our request with the hope of finding out more about government intentions for the project.

This meeting was a sequel to an earlier meeting, on 1 May 2009, with the Southern and Eastern Integrated Transport (SEITA) which then had bureaucratic responsibility for the proposed North-East Link, now ceded to VicRoads.

People in Banyule, as well as much wider afield, have become increasingly anxious about the proposed project since its sudden resurrection by the Brumby government in the December 2008 Victorian Transport Plan. If it were to go ahead the project would cut the communities of Viewbank, Rosanna, Heidelberg and Bulleen in half and destroy one of the most important historical and environmental assets in the City of Banyule - the Banyule Flats Wetlands and Warringal Park Swamplands 

Former Banyule Mayor, Cr. Tom Melican was reported in the press late last year as suggesting another possible route of the freeway could be through Rivergum Walk, Heidelberg/Rosanna.

Victorians are imploring the Victorian government to give priority to public transport instead of building more roads. Progress on improving public transport in the Northern and Eastern suburbs has been painfully slow for many years, yet the Victorian government has indicated it would be prepared to spend $6 billion plus on the North-East Link project. In comparison, the Government has allocated a paltry $500 million for improvements to our local public bus system across the entire state of Victoria.

VicRoads have recently published info previously available about the proposed North-East Link freeway/tunnel/viaduct in the Victorian Transport Plan (tabled in 2008), on their own website at http://www.vicroads.vic.gov.au/Home/RoadProjects/PlanningAndProposals/Melbourne/NorthEastLink.htm

....... Read more >

 

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Bulldozing underway on Peninsula Link : a scary message for Banyule and the rest of Melbourne

Under the direction of the Linking Melbourne Authority, the bulldozers have moved into significant bushland reserves in Frankston and on the Mornington Peninsula. The 27 kilometre Peninsula Link project is set to slice through Carrum Downs woodlands, Pines Flora and Fauna Reserve, Wittenberg Reserve, Westerfields heritage woodlands and many other areas of significant bushland remnants. The Pobblebank Wetland Reserve has been destroyed. The evidence is in that the bulldozing is taking place with reckless disregard for precious local flora and fauna.

This $759 million project between Carrum Downs and Dromana is totally unjustified in the public-transport poor Frankston and Mornington Peninsula area. The major bus service on the Peninsula, the 788, only runs every 45 minutes during peak hour. The freeway will simply act as a funnel to collect more cars for EastLink and, as a collateral effect, prop up the struggling finances of ConnectEast.

Most seriously for the rest of Melbourne it will serve to further ingrain car dependency and skew infrastructure investment further towards road transport at the expense of public transport and rail freight in the rest of Melbourne, including in the north-east in and around the City of Banyule.

The decision by the Victorian government to go ahead with this wasteful project shows how easy it has been to misallocate multi-millions of taxpayers' dollars on roads and environmental destruction.

And this was at a time when the Victorian government could only find one million dollars to prop up the grossly inadequate local bus services on the Peninsula and in the City of Frankston. We still await what the Victorian government has planned for much needed improvements in local bus services in Banyule in the bus service review announcement pending for our area.

This orchid site which had a quite large population of Chiloglottis trapeziformis, (Dainty Wasp Orchid) including the only population of the green form has been totally destroyed.   Other orchid species on the site included also  nodding greenhood, tall greenhood, trim greenhood, maroon greenhood, pink/white fingers, autumn bird orchid,  dotted sun orchid, slender sun orchid, pink sun orchids, several species of onion orchids, tongue orchids, helmet orchids, mosquito orchids  and  possibly tiger orchids. Many of the species may be common elsewhere, but the freeway project is another step to in making them rare and certainly locally extinct.

At the spiranthus site, the Ladies Tresses orchids have been all but destroyed by bulldozing and the changes will finish them off all together. This was a healthy population and one of the last in the Frankston area.

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The Yarra River Action Alliance have come together out of concern for the major development that is occurring on and around the river in the City of Yarra.

The alliance is rapidly growing in size as other people and groups emerge with similar issues and concerns.

The Yarra River Action Alliance appreciate the need for urban growth in order to meet the future needs of metropolitan Melbourne, but the land on the Yarra River is a precious and finite resource, and we are against any inappropriate or irresponsible development on its banks. The river is our heritage and we need to preserve it for future generations.  A video is available on the Vimeo website (register to view videos)  http://www.vimeo.com/11110109

This piece of disgraceful news even has implications for the North-East Link and all the other projects that they tell you not to worry about. The politicians of the day get up at meetings and swear that there will be no continuation of the freeway from the west, none at all. Then this gets out. Some kind of comment would be appropriate.