Hills residents to step up rail noise fight

Hills residents, “beyond angry” that a major federal study has ruled out rerouting freight trains from their suburbs, have vowed to step up their fight.

Mitcham’s Rail Freight Committee will hold a public meeting this month to discuss options, including lobbying the State and Federal Government for a report on the benefits of a northern bypass and calling for a new committee to consider the advantages of rerouting freight.

The 20-month Adelaide Rail Freight Movements study, released last month, said it would be too expensive to move or upgrade the track and the cost would outweigh any social or environmental benefits.

Eden Hills resident and Rail Freight Committee member Stephanie McCarthy Linehan said she “struggled to find words’’ to describe the report, which came after almost a decade of residents’ complaints about wheel squeal.

“I went beyond angry to shock and for a little while, my energy evaporated and I felt paralysed,’’ she said.

“But I’m like a dog with a bone, the tougher it gets, the tougher I fight.”

Ms McCarthy Linehan said she would be “co-ordinating a barrage’’ of emails, letters and calls to State and Federal MPs.

“If we can get a huge number of people to be demanding the same thing from our Federal and State governments, hopefully we’ll make a wheel squeal loud enough for both governments to take notice.”

Fellow Eden Hills resident Cynthia Wicks, who has been taking sleeping tablets for the past 20 years to cope with rail noise, said it seemed the government had put the problem in the “too hard basket”.

Share your opinion: View and discuss the Adelaide Hills rail bypass proposals.

Rail Freight Committee chairman and Mitcham councillor Mark Ward said he was disappointed the “unbalanced’’ report had focused on the cost of rerouting the line.

“The impact on people, the noise factors, the bushfire risks, the loss of amenity, the hold-ups at crossings… none of that’s been considered,’’ he said.

Cr Ward said the Federal Government should spend any leftover money from the $3 million study to set up a new committee and carry out further studies.

“The study says the current line can handle freight for the next 15 years so they’ve got to start planning and building the bypass so we’re ready by 2025.”

A spokesman for Federal Infrastructure Minister Anthony Albanese said the cost of the study, which had been handed to Infrastructure Australia to consider when finalising
its National Freight Network Strategy, was being tallied.

“We do not favour setting up another committee and we would be criticised for seeking another report because this report has provided the information we needed,’’ he said.

A spokesman for State Transport and Infrastructure Minister Pat Conlon said any follow-up reports would need to be carried out by the Federal Government.

The public meeting will be held at the Blackwood Baptist Church on Friday, July 30, at 7pm.

via Messenger News