Residents gathered in leafy Buruwan Park in Annandale on March 4 to protest the park’s destruction by NSW Roads and Maritime Services (RMS) as part of the controversial $17 billion WestConnex tollway network.
Speakers condemned the planned destruction of the park and its historic fig trees, and reveal the disastrous air pollution and community destruction effects of WestConnex.
NSW Greens MP for Balmain Jamie Parker detailed the current state of the campaign against WestConnex to the audience. He explained that Stages 1 and 2 of the WestConnex project are well under way.
Stage 3A, which involves a huge tunnel under the inner western suburbs of Haberfield and Ashfield, emerging in St Peters, is in process, but not nearly completed. It has led to the compulsory acquisition of many houses in those suburbs and the disruption of the lives of thousands of residents with air and noise pollution.
The campaign against Stage 3A will continue, regardless of the result of the looming state election.
Stage 3B is a complicated system of road tunnels and flyways in the inner-suburban Rozelle area, which would cause huge traffic jams at the Anzac and Iron Cove bridges and other road junctions. It is essentially a separate add-on to the main WestConnex project.
Under increasing pressure from the community campaign against WestConnex and other road tollways, the NSW Labor opposition has reportedly pledged to delay the construction of the state Coalition government's planned Western Harbour Tunnel (WHT).
Any delay to the Western Harbour Tunnel would also delay the linked Stage 3B. This opens the way for the anti-WestConnex movement to push for cancellation of both Stage 3B and the WHT, Parker explained.
[For more information on the campaign to save Buruwan Park and the Rozelle Interchange contact No WestConnex Annandale.]