Ballan Road answers wanted
[Re: Wanted: road for overload, Star Weekly, July 30] As a resident of Manor Lakes, I read the story and began to feel frustration. Frustration that my trip home would now potentially take longer and the quality of Ballan Road would decline even further due to a further increase in the number of vehicles and, in particular, large trucks during the construction phases.
A number of questions then popped into my head. Why is our council not insisting that developers contribute to improving the infrastructure in surrounding areas before they start building/subdividing?
Why would any developer want to risk negative attention and potentially impact their sales campaigns by having poor access? And why on earth does the council keep approving these developments without any consideration for the existing residents?
Please, can anybody answer these for me?
Frustrated, via web
Wyndham or Wonderland?
Anyone who is excited by what the state government is boasting about doing here must be living in Wonderland, not Wyndham! Here in the real world we are getting more of the same old half-truths as the state and developers proudly deliver more ghettos to Wyndham.
More forced housing developments with thousands of houses but no practical new roads to access the freeway for at least another 10 years.
VicRoads is billions of dollars behind in urgent roadworks.
A growing high rate of unemployment that further lowers our standard of living and increases drug use, youth at risk, mental health issues, broken families, criminal activity, the number of loan foreclosures, and on it goes. Developers pretending current infrastructure is “at capacity” when it is really far past capacity.
All this while residents and council are struggling just to keep our heads above water and stop our city from self-destructing under the weight of this unbalanced and unwanted expansionism.
This must be stopped!
Michael Young, via web
