Christine Pruneau, secretary, Macedon Ranges Residents Association
The Kyneton Movement Network Study. What’s it about? Mainly roads, cars, trucks and traffic, and overwhelmingly, it’s about changes needed to cater for 2100 new (greenfields) lots south of Kyneton, which will almost double Kyneton’s existing town population by 2036.
This study is part of the last council’s growth agenda, and supports that council’s grandiose Kyneton South Framework growth plan. This current council hasn’t approved the Framework Plan, but if it adopts this study, it will be locked into, and spending ratepayers’ money on, the plan’s expensive and totally unnecessary accelerated growth agenda.
The study has 47 ‘Actions’. Only 13 are costed (at $19 million), and almost all relate to the Kyneton South Framework Plan’s growth. The three biggest ticket items (new Campaspe River bridge, new Calder Freeway on-ramp, and removing the heritage railway level crossing) are among the many ‘Actions’ that aren’t costed.
Other ‘Actions’ include moving Lauriston Reservoir Road southwards, removing some parking on High and Mollison Streets, as well as removing parking and restricting property access on other roads including Edgecombe Street south of High Street. Other local roads will be upgraded to carry more through traffic.
The study is short on reliability. To justify its ‘Actions’, it invokes the recent $20-million-and-counting Shared Trails Feasibility Study, a dated 2016 traffic count and 2014 Walking and Cycling Strategy, a 2009 report on commercial land requirements, the 2010 MRSC Movement Study, and even a 2006 Sydney bus study. It doesn’t waste much time on parking issues, or on improvements for existing locals to better ‘get around’ their town.
It’s the typically agenda-ridden, poor standard stuff the community expected but wouldn’t accept from the last council. Garbage in, garbage out. The mystery is why the current council keeps breathing life into it all. Submissions close May 31. Check council’s website.
