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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2022-11-01 Daily Xml
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Davenport Electorate

Ms THOMPSON (Davenport) (15:33): Road safety, and access to road infrastructure, is a huge priority for my electorate of Davenport, so I would like to speak about some of the activities happening in my electorate that my community is particularly excited about.

On Sunday, we were able to announce and release the latest design concepts for the Majors Road on/off ramps onto the Southern Expressway. It was particularly exciting because our community has been patiently waiting to see what these roads will look like. Some of the surrounding community groups and sporting clubs involved in that area did have some concerns around how the roads might affect their clubs and their activities, and that was due to some incorrect and false information that was being spread throughout the community.

It was really great on Sunday to be able to show the facts, to get the true information out there into our community and to show that there will be very little to no impact on those surrounding assets. There will be no impact at all on the BMX facility. There will be no impact at all on the soccer facility. There will be no impact at all on the mountain bike trails that surround the Majors Road/Glenthorne Park precinct.

There will be very little or no impact on the Glenthorne National Park, and that is because the new ramps will be built within the existing road reserve. That also means that very little vegetation will be removed, and where limited vegetation is removed there is a guarantee of it being replaced twofold, and I know that user groups, like the Friends of Glenthorne, are particularly excited about that. That was a big win for them. They have been very engaged in this project and were very pleased to see those designs released on Sunday.

I would like to acknowledge the Department for Infrastructure and Transport and the great work they did engaging with our community. They ran a variety of workshops in the local shopping centres and in the local area. They heard from a lot of people about what their concerns were, and they were able to reassure them that the information they were hearing elsewhere was not accurate, and they were able to reassure them again on Sunday with the release of those designs. It is really exciting now that we can start looking forward to construction starting before Christmas, and hopefully the project being delivered by the end of 2025.

Another very exciting project happening in my community is the upgrade of Main Road, Cherry Gardens. That was an election commitment of mine. We have committed $10 million to the upgrade of that road, which was deemed the fourth riskiest road by the RAA earlier this year. It is fantastic that we are finally able to deliver the upgrade the local community has been asking for for years.

Fatalities and pretty awful accidents have happened over the last few years on that road, so the community is particularly keen to see it widened and resurfaced and also new guardrails being installed along that section. It will be a challenging project because it is quite a steep road and they will be cutting into the embankment. It is fantastic that the local residents who live along that stretch of road are so on board with the project and so keen to work with the department to get it happening as soon as possible.

Another road safety project we are working on at the moment is Grants Gully Road at Chandlers Hill. This one was brought to my attention by Watkins winery, which has a fantastic cellar door. There is also a new winery opening right across the road called Main & Cherry. We are very excited to have two cellar doors in my electorate. Those two wineries work really well together, so it is going to be a fantastic place for locals and families to enjoy the cellar door and the beautiful farm space around those cellar doors.

The wineries were concerned that the road that runs between them is an 80 km/h road. There have been quite a few accidents up there, and with people going between the two wineries, potentially after a wine or two, there could be some serious accidents. It was fantastic to get our police minister out there to have a look and chat to the winemakers. He has confirmed that we are able to reduce the speed limit to 70 km/h. That will commence from December, so we are really looking forward to that. We are really looking forward to Main & Cherry opening before Christmas so that we can all go along and check out some new wines and buy some new gifts for our friends and family.

Happy Valley Drive is currently under construction as well. It is really exciting to see safer pedestrian access being installed at the moment, which will help people get into the reservoir. It was something that the former government missed out. When they opened that reservoir, they did not think about the safe access to enter the reservoir, so it is great that finally people will be able to cross the road safely and enjoy those reservoir facilities.

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