Cloverall, Erskineville residents are still not happy

The approval of a controversial supermarket is just one area where Council has failed the residents of Erskineville, says a resident spokesperson.

Friends of Erskineville Working Group member Paul Howard has outlined among other things, what he says are serious traffic issues which he says have fallen on deaf ears at Town Hall.

Mr Howard said he didn’t feel the City of Sydney was engaging sufficiently with the community.

“Erskineville according to Clover Moore and her team is probably the best example of a village within the City of Sydney,” he said.

“All we want to see is a comprehensive strategic plan which can be managed and implemented to protect our environment.”

Mr Howard said traffic and parking issues, which were raised in a letter to Cr Moore in November and voiced at a community forum, were only getting worse.

“Erskineville Road is a parking lot most days … [and] we have parking issues where we are parked out by commuters,” he said.

“There’s [also] a lot of rat-run going through the suburb, people making short cuts through Erskineville to avoid congested roads.”

Mr Howard said he was still waiting for a formal response to November’s letter from Cr Moore, who had also promised to hold a special meeting with the residents to discuss traffic and related issues.

He said the problems would only get worse once the new supermarket opened.

“There is no way a population within half a kilometre can support a business that big,” he said.

“Therefore the operator will need to draw on people coming from a further distance, and they’ll drive.”

Late last year the Friends of Erskineville Working Group commissioned an independent town planner to assess the DA process for the supermarket.

“[We wrote another] letter to the Lord Mayor in December [as] a result of that report … there are four points in the letter that [were] highlighted,” Mr Howard said.

“We only on Monday received a response to that from the Lord Mayor which is a very vague … written by a spin doctor, but in it we’ve been invited to contact a council officer and meet with them.

“But the bottom line is Council needs to be studying the impacts of its decisions on the retail strip, on the areas we live in.”

Mr Howard said Council needed to be proactive.

“Let’s get a plan in place now that can be implemented on the day that the supermarket opens,” he said, “so residents are not subject to six or nine months of inaction by the council while they dither and work out what they’re going to do.”

A City of Sydney spokesperson said Council had balanced the concerns raised by some residents with the support of other residents.

“The relevant planning controls and the previous Court decision that supported an appropriately sized grocery store in the area were also carefully considered,” the spokesperson said.

“Council previously refused a large supermarket that would have … drawn the majority of its customers from outside the local area, leading to unacceptable parking and traffic impacts.”

The spokesperson said the Land and Environment Court had noted “there is no reason why there should not be … an appropriately sized supermarket [which] would anchor the [village] centre and improve its viability and sustainability.”

“The approved DA is 60 per cent smaller than the previously refused proposal,” the spokesperson said.

“Council has also imposed a ban on shopping trolleys and there is limited car parking which will discourage people from driving.

“Council has imposed further traffic calming measures and conditions to prevent large trucks from servicing the site.”