BY WENDY BACON
Ashfield Council has prepared a scathing response to the latest Westconnex EIS report lodged with the Department of Planning.
The Council covers both Ashfield and Haberfield, which would lose hundreds of homes and businesses and be significantly affected by noise, pollution and traffic congestion caused by the Westconnex M4 East. If the project is approved by the NSW Minister for Planning and Environment Rob Stokes, a three year construction period will begin in the first half of this year. Already many homeowners have been forced to sell and move out, often at below market prices.
Ashfield Council hired independent consultants to prepare a detailed response to the M4 East EIS, which was produced by AECOM, a company that last year paid $200 million to settle a negligence case based on its wrong predictions for a tollway in Brisbane. AECOM has been deeply involved in the Westconnex project since the beginning and has other Westconnex engineering contracts that have led to concerns about its lack of the EIS independence.
AECOM was required to file a “submissions report” responding to all submissions, including hundreds of concerns raised by Ashfield Council, 16 other Councils and government departments and more than 4800 individuals and community groups. Its three-volume response to the submissions was quietly published on the NSW Department of Planning and Environment in December 2015.
In comments prepared on the report, Council lists 20 key issues none of which have been satisfactorily resolved in the “submissions report” including concerns about the traffic modelling on which rests predictions for congestion, air quality and noise. Instead of responding, the Council argues that AECOM merely “requotes information provided in the EIS which was the subject of concern.” It criticises the lack of objective data supporting the project.
Westconnex has refused to release its traffic model leaving independent experts without the full information needed to test the results. Ashfield Council recommends that the model be “made available so that a complete peer review’ can be undertaken before any construction is allowed to begin.
Greens Spokesperson on the Westconnex Newtown MP Jenny Leong told City Hub that she also supported a review of the EIS. She believes that the process for both the M4 East and New M5 IS “deeply flawed.”
“With the M4 East process thousands of individual residents, concerned citizens and independent experts made submissions only to find their contributions bundled together and made pretty much inaccessible.”
Leong is referring to the Department dumping nearly 5000 submissions in more than 60 PDFS rather than presenting them individually as was done for the Northconnex tunnel project, which also attracted 1000s of submissions. Some were not published at all.
The AECOM submissions report states that a letter was sent to each person who lodged a submission informing them of an individual identification number that would enable them to track how their concerns were dealt with in the submissions report.
City Hub has checked with scores of people who filed submissions. Nobody received a letter leading this reporter to conclude that this statement is misleading and false.
Concerns about the rationale and lack of accountability for the Westconnex led the Shadow Minister for Infrastructure Grayndler MP Anthony Albanese to join the Greens’ and community groups’ call for a Federal audit last week. Meanwhile the NSW Department of Planning ploughs on releasing AECOM’s massive EIS for the New M5 that would tunnel from Kingsgrove in the South West of Sydney to a massive interchange at the Princes Highway in St Peters and Newtown in December before the M4 East process is even complete.
Leong is also critical of the government for releasing this second EIS just before Christmas with the consultation period running until January 29 when “families are on holidays, councils are on leave and small retail businesses – who will be hit hard by the proposed plans – are in their peak season.”
“There’s been virtually no community consultation with key stakeholders despite the EIS social impact section claiming engagement has been undertaken,” she said.
“Both these EIS documents have basically been written to support the case for WestConnex by a company, AECOM which has ongoing contracts for work on this project and so we see scant analysis of genuine alternatives. The research methods and data used are unavailable which makes proper scrutiny impossible.”
Along with community campaigning groups, she wants “an immediate halt to all construction, contract signing and home acquisitions until there has been an independent review of the WestConnex project.” She says this includes, ” EIS documents which should be independently reviewed and evaluated to see whether they in fact address the basic environmental assessment (SEARs) that have been mandated by the Secretary of the Department of Planning and Environment.”
“The Planning Minister must intervene to alleviate growing concerns that his Department is simply a ‘rubber stamp’ on this mammoth infrastructure project. This includes ensuring the community’s submissions are adequately considered and responded to prior to any development approvals are issued, ” she said.
As soon as the M5 EIS was released City of Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore put out a call to action, encouraging all community members to submit objections to the project.
With the deadline for submissions looming, Westconnex Action Group campaigners in Kingsgrove, Newtown and St Peter are spending their summer delivering information to the community about the long and complex New M5 EIS documents. Spokesperson Pauline Lockie also challenged the planning process, “Of course, when billion-dollar construction contracts have already been handed out for the M4 East, there must be huge pressure on the Planning department to approve this project no matter what. But it’s hard to see how Minister Stokes and the Baird Government could have any credibility left if he rubber-stamps this project in the face of so much opposition and evidence against it.”
Wendy Bacon has been part of Westconnex Action Group campaigns. She has filed an individual complaint with the Department of Planning which is published on her website. http://www.wendybacon.com/2016/how-the-department-of-planning-botched-public-submissions-for-westconnex-m4-east/ PLEASE ADD LINK
