The woman who’s spearheading the campaign to upgrade the Princes Hwy and Jervis Bay Road intersection has been in limbo for weeks, waiting for a government representative or candidate to make a financial commitment to the interchange.
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Vincentia’s Liz Tooley has called every politician who spoke at the public meeting at St Georges Basin Country Club on November 7.
“I’ve called each one of them to say thank you for coming, but words are cheap,” Mrs Tooley said.
In the weeks following a constructive, matter-of-fact community meeting, where 300 Bay and Basin residents engaged with decision-makers from all tiers of government, Mrs Tooley has been regularly stopped in the streets, thanked for organising the meeting and asked, “Now, what’s happening with the intersection?”
“I don’t know what to tell them,” she said.
“I see the cameras and traffic counters are in, the RMS (Roads and Maritime Services) has done that.
“That’s fine, all they’ll get is confirmation on what we’re talking about.”
The RMS will remove the data-collection counters after a couple of weeks and then put them back at peak holiday season for a couple of weeks according to South Coast MP Shelley Hancock.
The data-collection exercise has been funded by $60,000 from state government coffers – common knowledge by the end of the public meeting.
Vincentia Matters released a statement this week, to summarise community sentiment after the meeting.
“The Bay and Basin villagers believe that the rapid escalation of the risks associated with the intersection is being fuelled by the government’s actions to improve the highway to the north of the intersection. While the improvements are welcomed, the flow-on consequences of the changes - the threats to other road users - have been a critical oversight by the state government. Action is required at the intersection before avoidable road deaths and related traumas also increase.”
The meeting reinforced the community group’s stance that a graded intersection will be the only long-term solution acceptable to local residents.
State and federal politicians who spoke at the public meeting
Shelley Hancock (South Coast MP), Ryan Park (NSW Shadow Treasurer), Jo Gash representing Ann Sudmalis (Gilmore MP), Gareth Ward (Kiama MP), Fiona Phillips (Labor’s Gilmore candidate), Annette Alldrick (Labor’s South Coast candidate), Grant Schultz (seeking Liberal endorsement in Gilmore).
