Ferry Road has been getting a bit of a run in the House of Assembly lately.  On 22 June 2010, Will Hodgman, the Leader of the Opposition said:

What about Labor’s $90 million election promise of work to upgrade 16 roads across the State?  There are no specific allocations in this Budget for funding to upgrade these roads.  Of course Labor is now saying that it will need to get business case approval for each road first.  That is not what you told the people of Tasmania when you made them that promise during the election campaign.  So now many communities right across Tasmania are unsure as to whether or not they will even see these upgrades.  The Tasmanians who use Ferry Road at Kettering or the Arthur Highway or the Tasman Highway or the Highland Lakes Road, will continue to drive on roads that Mr Bartlett said just three months ago needed urgent upgrading.

Liberal Member for Franklin, Jacquie Petrusma has also been putting the acid on the government and submitted a Notice of Motion on 23 July 2010.

And today, Liberals shadow minister for Infrastructure, Rene Hidding issued a media release entitled Regional roads funding not guaranteed which says:

In Estimates today, Lara Giddings admitted that Labor’s $90 million funding for regional roads was not in the Budget.

Instead, there was an unallocated pool of infrastructure funding that would be used to fund infrastructure for a number of government departments.

The Labor Party made a commitment at the election to fund up to 16 regional roads, yet none of the roads mentioned at election are guaranteed any funding at all.

Instead, the Labor Party intends to use the unallocated money like a magic pudding.  Whenever they are asked about infrastructure funding they will point to the unallocated amount and say that it could be funded.

As we’ve seen with the Urban Heritage and Renewal Fund, whenever the Labor Party has a large bucket of unallocated money, it tends to be spent inefficiently and generally in areas of Tasmania where the Labor vote is flagging.

That’s not the way to run a budget and Tasmanians can well be concerned that not all of the 16 roads mentioned in the election will be funded and that the unallocated infrastructure funding will not be spent efficiently and effectively.

Minister for Infrastructure, Lara Giddings, had the following to say in amongst other things in her media release:

In the leadup to the Federal Election, I expect funding for major infrastructure projects to form a significant part of both major parties’ election commitments.

Ms Giddings said the State Government was committed to meeting all of its transport infrastructure election commitments, including the Community Roads Package and the West Coast Roads Package.

These two important roads packages will deliver a number of road improvements across the State to provide a safer traveling environment for all road users.

Through a planning and scoping fund of up to $12.5 million over the next four years, we will immediately begin planning work on road projects as identified through these two initiatives.

Aaah – the old pre-election promise trick – we remember it well.

If the agenda papers for the Kingborough Council meeting on Monday 28 June are anything to go by then it will be at least 2 years before we see any real work commenced on fixing Ferry Road.  The General Manager’s report to the meeting states:

. . . irrespective of the commitments from both major political parties during the election campaign it is unlikely that any works will occur on Ferry Road within the next 2 years. DIER have advised that there will be at least 2 years of planning required for this project; however, in the meantime it is proposed that on peak weekend/holidays they will engage staff to monitor/assist with ferry traffic demand particularly as it relates to those residences which have access from Ferry Road

One can only presume that this also means that Council will continue to hide behind the perennial  “we can’t do any work until DIER plans are finalised”  to avoid progress on creating a safe pedestrian walkway along the Ferry Road foreshore.   This despite unanimous support for the idea at last November’s Council meeting.

In relation to the ongoing problem of  sewerage treatment at the Ferry Terminal  the General Manager reports that:

. . . advice was provided (by DIER?) that an agreement has been reached between the owner of the Oyster Cove Inn and DIER (owners of the Ferry Terminal) for a combined treatment facility for both properties to be developed on the Oyster Cove Inn land. The treatment plant will only service the two properties. It is expected that a development application will be submitted in the near future.

Interesting news given that it implies some form of pipeline between the Ferry Terminal and the pub.  Its not clear as to the extent Southern Water have been consulted on this solution.  We are still waiting for Southern Water to get back to us with some costing of reticulated or other sewerage treatment options.  They told us in January it would take around 3 months to produce an analysis.

Councillor Michelle Higgins has managed to extract some further information on the lack of all round progress by submitting a Question on Notice for the Council meeting.

Meanwhile in Parliament Liberal Member for Franklin, Jacquie Petrusma has been putting the acid on the government with a Notice of Motion.

A series of emails to Lara Giddings, pleading for her to get her Department to keep the community  updated on  exactly how they plan to spend the promised $8.0m on Ferry Road, appear to have fallen on deaf ears (or should that be blind eyes?). The Minister clearly believes that the community will eventually find out what’s going on via some form of osmosis.

If you would like to try your luck at getting some information out of DIER click here to generate an email to the Minister and Deputy Premier Giddings. You can edit the email to reflect your views before sending it on to Ms Giddings.

Kingborough Council’s Environment and Development Committee meets today.  Following is an extract from a report to the meeting prepared by Council’s Manager, Environmental Services, Jon Doole:

Ferry Road wastewater investigations

In 2006, Council’s Environmental Health staff inspected on-site wastewater management systems along Ferry Road. This identified a number of properties that had potentially deficient systems. In 2009, these were again reinspected and on preliminary assessment, signs of failure were still evident. It was suggested that a number would require upgrading to an AWTS and number of others could be rectified with modifications to existing infrastructure eg – new or additional trenches. These properties have again been reviewed. Re-inspections have been undertaken and dye testing of the systems has commenced to confirm evidence of failure, particularly those suspected of discharging to the roadside. Property owners have been contacted in writing to arrange a time for further investigation. Council is actively progressing this issue with a view to facilitating necessary on-site wastewater upgrades or modifications to ensure satisfactory operation. Once the investigations are fully complete, outcomes of the project will form a separate report to the Committee.

Great to see that Council are “actively progressing this issue”!

A  pre-election promise of $8.0m to Fix Ferry Road almost seemed too good to be true – especially when it was echoed by both major parties.  Well it looks like perhaps it was too good to be true as far as Labor are concerned.  There is no specific allocation for Ferry Road in the State budget announced by the Treasurer today.

There is  some money in the budget for Ferry Road in 2010/2011 but nothing  committed in the out-years of the forward estimates.  Buried under the heading Road Planning Allocation within the Department of Industry, Energy and Resources portfolio is an amount of $1.5 million.

Sounds promising you might think but then you notice in the fine print that “Commencing in 2010-11, this initiative provides funding of $1.5 million per annum for four years to accelerate planning work for future road projects, including as a priority, planning work for the Government’s Community Roads Package”.

The Community Roads Package includes 16 “priority” projects of which Ferry Road is but one.  If they are all equal priority then that means a tad less than $100,000 each.  Roughly equivalent to what DIER are spending  annually to pump out the sewerage tank at the Bruny Island ferry terminal and probably about as useful in terms of actually getting something done.  How many consultants can you buy for $100,000 these days?

It’s now over a year since Kingborough Council and DIER commenced development of a Precinct Plan for Ferry Road.  Despite this plan being finalised last year there has been no feedback whatsoever from DIER on what they actually plan to do about implementing its recommendations.  All we ever get, apart from impressive sounding election promises, is that there is a substantial amount of planning to be done before work can commence.  That was certainly the line that we got from Graeme Sturges and now it looks like Lara Giddings and Michael Aird are singing from the same song sheet Sturgo used.  If only someone from DIER would actually contact the community to at least provide us with a progress report or put us out of our misery.

Well it has been pretty quiet this Queen’s Birthday Weekend.  No signs of any major traffic problems on the Ferry Road side of the Channel.

This could be due to the efforts of DIER  who recently advised Ferry Road residents via an information sheet that new traffic arrangements would be trialled  during the weekend.

Or it could possibly be due to the series of substantial “KEEP CLEAR” signs that have been painted along various parts of the east bound lane.

One of a series of markings by DIER - June 2010

The new signage hasn’t done much to enhance the quiet charm or aesthetic appearance of our village but at least there were no instances of driveways being blocked. The keen observer may notice  in the example pictured above the word “CLEAR”doesn’t actually fit on its own side of the road.  Could this be an indication that the road is perhaps not quite wide enough?

In any event let’s hope that DIER are not put off by the lack of response (by way of hordes of motorists) to their traffic management trial.  It was much better to iron out the kinks in the dead of winter when traffic volumes are low rather than to test them out in the heat of the Christmas holiday gridlock.

Kingborough Council has issued a survey seeking input to the development of a Kettering Walking Plan!  This survey stems from a decision taken at Council’s November 2009 meeting supporting in-principle a foreshore walkway along Ferry Road.   A report on how this could be achieved was called for but somehow the project managed to morph  into the development of  “an overarching recreational walkways plan” for Kettering.

The covering material for the survey states that:

Kingborough Council unanimously agreed at its March 2010 meeting to undertake the development of a walking plan for Kettering that could be implemented as soon as funding was available and would compliment(sic) the State Government plans for the Ferry Road upgrade, ferry parking and footpath.

The Foreshore Boardwalk concept cannot be implemented by Council until DIER Ferry Road plans are released. Once these plans are finalised Council will involve all interested stakeholders to confirm the boardwalk concept.

Waiting for DIER huh?  Sounds familiar.

Still I suppose a bit of community consultation isn’t to be sneezed at.  So if you haven’t received your copy of the survey you can download it here.

Meanwhile back at DIER HQ it appears from their website that the Kettering Precinct Master Plan has made it (albeit only in the small print) into the Tasmanian government’s Infrastructure Strategy for the next decade.  There are no details as to what will be done or when it will happen or even what stage of the planning process we’re up to.

How DIER decides on infrastructure projects

I’ll leave it to you to speculate on where the Fix Ferry Road project sits in the priorities.

Well, all the promises have been made and we are just waiting, waiting , waiting for something to happen.

Perhaps we’ll see something in the budget that mentions Ferry Road.  If not I guess we’ll just re-convene in around 42 months to start lobbying again in the build up to the next election.

According to Wikipeadia (with a liberal amount of poetic licence) a postelectoral dip can produce irresistible drowsiness in some individuals, leading to a postelectoral nap.

Sorry – I realise this is pretty lame – but its hard to keep the news flowing when there isn’t any!

In the recent article Who ya gonna call? we announced Lara Giddings as the new Minister for Infrastructure (and therefore Fixing Ferry Road).  In this sequel we announce  Rene Hidding as the Libs and Tim Morris as the Greens shadow ministers for that portfolio.

Keep those cards and letters flowing.

Remember the public consultation  meeting to garner input for the development of the Ferry Road and Little Oyster Cove Precinct Plan?  It was held on 1 June last year and was conducted by consultants SEMF.  Well it looks like almost a year to the day we will be having another public consultation meeting again involving SEMF.  The only difference is that this time their client is Southern Water and the focus will be on sewage treatment.

Hopefully Ferry Road solution will be less complex

Over the past few months Southern Water have been working on a “scoping and options report” for possible solutions to the Ferry Road sewerage problems.  They have apparently enlisted SEMF to assist with this endeavour.  Latest advice is that SEMF have completed their assessment and their report will be used by Southern Water to conduct a “community forum/meeting where all angles and points of view can be discussed”.  This is expected to occur mid to late May.

“Here we go again . . .” did I hear someone say?

Well the wait to find out the composition of  the new state government is finally over.  Looks like Lara Giddings is the minister to pursue to make sure things happen to Fix Ferry Road.  Not only is the Deputy Premier the Minister for Infrastructure but she’s also Minister for Economic Development.

Deputy Premier Lara

During the lead up to the election Lara issued some election flyers which highlighted Labor’s $8 million commitment to Fix Ferry Road.  Interestingly enough that flyer made specific mention of $1 million to remedy the sewerage problems at the Ferry Terminal.

Will we soon be seeing a Development Application for the sewerage treatment plant to the south of the Ferry Terminal?  Some leaseholders seem to think that’s back on the cards.

Below is the full list of  Ministers in the Labor-Green Alliance:

David Bartlett

• Premier
• Minister for Innovation, Science and Technology

Lara Giddings

• Deputy Premier
• Attorney-General
• Minister for Justice
• Minister for Economic Development
• Minister for Infrastructure

Michael Aird

• Treasurer
• Minister for Industry

Bryan Green

• Minister for Primary Industries and Water
• Minister for Energy and Resources
• Minister for Local Government
• Minister for Planning
• Minister for Racing
• Minister for Veterans’ Affairs

Nick McKim

• Minister for Human Services
• Minister for Corrections and Consumer Protection
• Minister for Community Development
• Minister for Climate Change
• Minister for Sustainable Transport and Alternative Energy

David O’Byrne

• Minister for Environment, Parks and Heritage
• Minister for Workplace Relations
• Minister for the Arts
• Minister for Hospitality
• Minister for Sport and Recreation

Michelle O’Byrne

• Minister for Health
• Minister for Tourism

Lin Thorp

• Minister for Education and Skills
• Minister for Children
• Minister for Police and Emergency Management

Cassy O’Connor

• Secretary to Cabinet

Doug Parkinson

• Leader for the Government in the Legislative Council

Brenton Best

• Parliamentary Secretary for the North Western Economy (working to the Premier)

Brian Wightman

• Parliamentary Secretary for the Northern Economy (working to the Premier)

Rebecca White

• Parliamentary Secretary for Small Business (working to the Deputy Premier)

Scott Bacon

• Parliamentary Secretary for Treasury (working to the Treasurer)

On Easter  Monday the queue of cars waiting to return from Bruny Island stretched back up the hill from Roberts Point for over a kilometer.  The police presence on Bruny Island was augmented to deal with the Easter rush. Fair enough – but what motorists weren’t expecting was that they would be booking people for travelling on the wrong side of the road to bypass the ferry queue.

Reliable sources on Bruny report that several motorists were booked when trying to deliver pedestrian passengers to the ferry terminal at Roberts Point.  They weren’t trying to queue jump.  They were trying to drop people of closer to the ferry so they didn’t have to walk over a kilometer to get there.

A typical Ferry Road traffic situation

This sets an interesting precedent for residents of Ferry Road and others seeking to use Ferry Road for reasons other than reaching the ferry terminal.  Next time the traffic is banked up to the highway and you need to reach your house , or your boat at South Haven Marina, then it seems like  you’ll run the risk of being booked for your troubles  unless you are prepared to wait in line for an hour or so. Oh well, it is the letter of the law.

If the police apply  the same rule to service vehicles (eg the septic tank pump out truck that services the ferry terminal) then it could cause quite a stink.

In an article in the Sunday Tasmanian on 11 April there is some speculation about the composition of the new Labor cabinet.

Surprised to be back?

Returning Treasurer, Michael Aird, is touted as gaining responsibility for Infrastructure as well as Racing and a further raft of portfolios.

Minister for Racing and Infrastructure?  Does this mean it’s an odds on bet that we will get some money set aside in the forthcoming budget to Fix Ferry Road?

In the Kingborough and Huon Times supplement to the same newspaper the ills of Ferry Road get another run following on from a record volume of traffic visting Bruny Island over Easter.  The main point of the article is that in the light of election promises from both major political parties the focus of the Fix Ferry Road campaign should now be on holding the government’s feet to the fire to ensure delivery on their promises.

The article also point the finger at Kingborough Council who have yet to come to the party and finally do something about the foreshore walkway they have been going on about for years.  Council have precious little responsibility for anything along Ferry Road since they lost responsibility for Water and Sewerage.  Pedestrian access is now the only thing they can contribute to but they seem to have chosen to broaden the terms of reference for a review and embarked on a grand plan for walkways all over Kettering rather than focusing on long standing priorities.

An article in today’s Mercury reports that:

The ferry smashed records at the weekend, carrying more than 660 cars to the island on Good Friday alone, although motorists were forced to wait up to four hours in a queue more than 2km long which spilled on to the Channel Highway.

The Bruny Island Community Association are calling for an extra ferry to service the island between December and May.  You can read the full article here.

It’s a little ironic that after 15 years of lobbying to get some sort of financial commitment from the government to fix Ferry Road we finally get election promises of $8 million from both major political parties.  Great – then we get a hung parliament.  Doh!

The Royal Automobile Club of Tasmania have come out in support of plans to Fix Ferry Road.   An article entitled Kettering precinct promises welcomed in the  April/May edition of the organisation’s Journeys magazine says that:

The RACT will keep the two main political parties to their promises on Bruny Island ferry access at Kettering.

Through its Southern Regional Advisory Committee, the RACT has taken a close interest over several years in the congested ferry access at Kettering.

“We’ve been concerned that the facilities are inappropriate and dangerous, both for motorists queuing to get onto the ferry, and local residents and pedestrians,” said RACT spokesman Vince Taskunas.

Yesterday, the Liberal Party promised to upgrade the ferry access and surrounds, following an earlier, similar commitment by the Labor Government.

“Local residents, pedestrians, commuters, tourists, and Tasmania’s travel brand itself will all benefit from a Government focus on fixing congestion, services and road safety around the Bruny Island ferry terminal,” Mr Taskunas said.

“It is also heartening to hear that consideration is being given to an additional ferry service operating alongside the Mirambeena to address the growing peak period demand

“The traditional two-week peak period starting Boxing Day has, over the last few years, grown strongly and now covers at least six weeks starting mid-December and extending to the end of January.

Mr Taskunas said the RACT’s Southern Regional Advisory Committee’s meeting in Hobart last night reaffirmed its longstanding commitment to the need for urgent action at Ferry Road in Kettering.

“The RACT has spent over three years lobbying on this matter, and we expect the next Tasmanian Government to get on with safety and access improvements early in its term following the March 20 election.”

At last November’s Council meeting the General Manager’s recommendations on the Ferry Road and Little Oyster Cove Precinct Plan were unanimously endorsed.  One of the recommendations was that “Council supports in-principle the concept of a boardwalk/pedestrian path on the northern side of Ferry Road and requests that the matter be further investigated and reported to Council”.

This recommendation was very encouraging to numerous Kettering residents who had seen several versions of  plans for such a foreshore walkway come to nought over the past decade.

In response to the recommendation a report has now been prepared for consideration by Council’s Infrastructure and Recreational Services Committee.  Instead of focusing on Ferry Road the report implies another period of “planning and consultation” while “an overarching Recreational Walkway Plan for Kettering” is developed.  $5,000 has been set aside for this process.  You can read the full report here.

Residents had hoped that the decision taken at the November Council meeting signaled Council would be looking at quickly implementing some of the ideas included in Council’s most recent review of the boardwalk concept conducted in  February 2009.  Especially as the Mayor was seen tracing the route of the walkway with that report in hand last March.  Instead it appears that Council starting the planning process afresh and with a broadened scope.  Whilst “an overarching Recreational Walkway Plan for Kettering”  is an admirable goal it hardly seems like a valid reason to further delay tackling the Ferry Road walkway – a project which has been on the drawing boards for over ten years!

It you want to see the present state of the foreshore walkway visit here.

Enough of the planning already – let’s have some action.