Page 228 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 16 February 2011
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MR SMYTH (Brindabella) (5.40): I have to say that I am disappointed. I could accept the Chief Minister’s case if this was a site where no noise attenuation had been undertaken. But it is a site where, when the road was developed to a four-lane dual carriageway, the government of the day—it is about 1995 or 1996; so it might have been a Liberal or a Labor government—understood that this would affect residents. As a consequence of that, they put the noise attenuation mound in.
I am not asking for a new structure. I am simply asking for maintenance. I am asking for a mound that has been eroded, degraded and then dug up by Telstra actually to be restored to what it was. That is not an unreasonable request. In effect, this is a request for some roadside maintenance.
I see that Ms Bresnan wrote on behalf of her constituent; well done for that. But I am surprised that she will do nothing now to further that cause. It is a very simple matter. There is a question of the reduction in the size of the mound, the damage done by Telstra and the absence of vegetation.
Ms Bresnan says, “We would like to see some trees there.” But even fast-growing species of trees would probably take 10 to 15 years before they have some effect on the noise in that area. That is a long time to wait. The problem here is that the community have a certain level of amenity. Through not maintaining the area and not ensuring that Telstra restored the area after it had done its work, the government have let down the community. They have an obligation to maintain the assets of the city, and a noise attenuation mound along Isabella Drive is an asset of the city. They have an obligation to maintain the amenity of citizens, and the amenity has been eroded through the lack of maintenance and, in the case of the work done by Telstra, through the lack of restoration.
I am not sure I see the problem here. We can do all the surveys we want and say, “Yes, it is just below the limit.” I think it is probably slightly more serious than the Chief Minister said and it has clearly affected the resident who made the first complaint. It is interesting to read the complaint. It states:
My property backs onto Isabella Drive in Macarthur. The road was divided 15yrs ago … Hence the road was moved 20 metres closer to my … fence. Also most of the trees in the buffer … have died due to the drought. The traffic noise was not noticeable due to the mound running along the road. Two years ago, this mound was removed when Telstra laid some major communication cables. Since then the noise has become quite noticeable especially early morning and peak hour at night. As there is a gradient, trucks are particularly noisy due to their compression brakes and use of low gears. Now, you cannot sit outside and have a conversation without difficulty in hearing when traffic is constant.
This lady says:
I have installed wall insulation recently to lower the noise heard inside but this has only been slightly effective. Trees take too long to grow to be of any useful barrier. Ideally, the return of the soil mound along the road would be the most effective.
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