Leichhardt residents and other opponents of the controversial $17 billion WestConnex motorway project picketed a test drilling rig site near Pioneer Park on November 21, preventing the site’s establishment for 24 hours.
Protests continued at the site for several days after that, with information pickets planned every morning over the next week.
Due to route changes announced by Sydney Motorway Corporation (SMC) in early November, the M4–M5 link tunnel is now slated to go underneath a larger part of Leichhardt than previously proposed.
Leichhardt Against WestConnex (LAW) spokesperson and local resident Catherine Gemmell said: “Leichhardt residents want to see the WestConnex project stopped. It is bad planning on the run. Look at SMC’s plans to take 7 Darley Road as a long term tunnel dive site. Decisions are being taken without consideration of the very significant broader traffic, safety and access impacts.
“SMC has not consulted the council or the wider community about their plans for WestConnex and the impacts it will have, like bringing hundreds of trucks a day in and out of a site on Darley Road, which already has identified safety and traffic problems.”
LAW is concerned about the traffic gridlock these truck movements will create as well as the safety risk posed to pedestrians and schoolchildren on what is already a dangerous road.
“We [protested] to let Premier [Mike] Baird, [Roads Minister] Duncan Gay and the SMC know that wherever those drill-rigs turn up in Leichhardt, they will face a great deal of opposition from local residents,” said Gemmell.
Protests at drill-rig sites have ramped up across inner western Sydney in the past month, with residents from Newtown, St Peters, Camperdown, Rozelle, Lilyfield, Annandale and Leichhardt turning up to stop the drilling. There have been four arrests, including journalist Wendy Bacon.
On November 20, a rally of more than 200 people was held in Badu Park, Annandale, to protest against the planned incursions by WestConnex into Annandale and Camperdown, and to stand up for the local community. The Baird government wants a midpoint tunnel site in Camperdown, which could take part of the triangle of Bridge Road, Mallet Street and Parramatta Road.
In addition, Premier Baird wants to destroy hundreds of Sydney Park trees and take 14,000 square metres of the park for WestConnex. The toll road would also leave Sydney Park next to a monstrous spaghetti interchange, unfiltered pollution stacks and six-lane highways choking with traffic.
On November 27, a launch picnic for the Adopt a Tree campaign was held at the Save Sydney Park camp, on the corner of Campbell and Euston Roads, St Peters. Participants were asked to choose a particular tree under threat in the park to adopt as part of the campaign.
Residents of Newtown, alarmed by the threat by WestConnex to route the road tunnel directly under their homes and straight through the historic Kingston Heritage Estate, have organised a community meeting for December 6, at 6.30pm, at the Newtown Neighbourhood Centre.
Speakers will include WestConnex and independent traffic analysts, experts on the health impacts of underground motorways and the impacts of drilling and blasting on this scale for sensitive heritage structures.
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