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Legislative Council - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2009-07-15 Daily Xml
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MOUNT BARKER

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY (Leader of the Opposition) (14:55): I have a supplementary question. What new public transport services are featured in the draft 30-year plan for the Mount Barker community?

The Hon. P. HOLLOWAY (Minister for Mineral Resources Development, Minister for Urban Development and Planning, Minister for Small Business) (14:56): If the honourable member looks at the maps he will see that there is a proposal to investigate what form that public transport might take. It could follow the freeway corridor and, one would think, it might perhaps be an express busway along the corridor or some similar form of transport. Certainly that is contemplated within the 30-year plan. As Mount Barker grows over the next 30 years, then at some point that would need to be considered.

Again, I should remind the Leader of the Opposition of the point I made in answer to an earlier question, namely, that the whole purpose of the Mount Barker proposal is to try to make the town more self-sustaining in regard to employment generation. We want to see the development progress in such a form that will create jobs within the region and locally so that people will not need to travel. In other words, the future of Mount Barker should be less that of a commuter corridor suburb and more that of a self-contained town.

As I mentioned, under the work done by the Grants Commission and others, the estimation is that a town roughly the size of 25,000 people is about the appropriate size to guarantee a level of services and self-sufficiency, and that is taken into account in grant submissions for local government. That is another reason why the 30-year plan targets the growth in particular centres and why it aims for that size of development. The studies show that that is the most efficient size in terms of providing a good level of services. These days (and I am sure that my colleague the Minister for State/Local Government Relations would be well aware of the financial stability issues for local government), the evidence is that that is the sort of level which provides the best degree of sustainability.

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