Tuesday, 5 March 2024

Adjournment

Gayle TIERNEY (Western Victoria – Minister for Skills and TAFE, Minister for Regional Development) (01:58): I move:

That the house do now adjourn.

Shepparton bypass

Wendy LOVELL (Northern Victoria) (01:58): (743) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Transport Infrastructure, and it concerns the urgent need for a dedicated Shepparton bypass. The action I seek is for the minister to commit funding for stage 1 of the Shepparton bypass, at a minimum, in the 2024–25 state budget.

Shepparton has long needed and advocated for a full bypass of our city, but unfortunately our pleas continue to be ignored by the state Labor government. Recently residents of Shepparton received a letter from the Victorian Planning Authority telling them about the proposed Shepparton south-east precinct structure plan. This plan has highlighted yet another reason the state needs to get on with the job of building the Shepparton bypass. The precinct plan sets out the provisional design and layout of a new housing development north of the Broken River on Doyles Road in Shepparton. The proposed precinct includes around 2500 new homes, a primary school, health facility, community centre and shops. I welcome the precinct plan as Shepparton needs more housing. I also welcome the chance for residents to offer feedback on the plan as the city seeks to manage its growth.

However, one piece of feedback I have already received concerns the proposed pedestrian crossing on Doyles Road. The crossing will help residents on the east side of Doyles Road cross over to the west side of Doyles Road to where the new school and shops will be. The problem is that Doyles Road is a designated heavy vehicle alternative freight route that takes trucks around Shepparton to avoid the town centre. New housing will mean more traffic on Doyles Road and a pedestrian crossing on a major truck route will be reproducing the same risks that exist at the Kialla West Primary School crossing, the site of the dreadful accident that occurred in 2018. Shepparton needs to grow and in order for it to do that the state needs to get on with building our permanent bypass. The floods of 2022 that divided Shepparton and Mooroopna highlighted the desperate need for a second river crossing above flood levels, and this precinct plan shows the current alternate route is not sustainable in the long term.

The reason I ask for funding for stage 1 at a minimum is that stage 1 would not actually assist to take trucks off Doyles Road, and it would not be until the bypass is completed in full that this would occur. It is time to get on with building the Shepparton bypass, and only the state can do that. We need the state government to act and deliver a dedicated bypass road that will keep trucks out of Shepparton’s CBD and residential areas and away from kids walking to school and that will also provide a second river crossing above flood level so that towns west of the Goulburn are never again left cut off from the hospital and other major services based in Shepparton.