Fix Ferry Road

Nick McKim weighs in for Ferry Road

This week the Leader of the Tasmanian Greens, Nick McKim MP, raised the matter of road infrastructure and sewerage at Ferry Road, Kettering in the Tasmanian Parliament. Mr. McKim’s office sent a copy of the hansard with a covering note which said:

Nick is aware that this is an issue that has dragged on for a long time and ensures you his continued support until the Government takes action that has the broad support of the local community. In Parliament he spoke about the danger of Ferry Road due to traffic congestion en route to Bruny Island, and the lack of pedestrian access. He raised the matter of the significant sewerage problem, and called for “a holistic approach to the issue” that works with the “local community” and has “broad community support”.

Hansard records Mr McKim’s statement commencing at 6.33pm on Tuesday 24 March 2009 as follows:

Mr McKIM (Franklin – Leader of the Greens) – I rise to raise a matter for the third or fourth time over the last couple of years – the issue of Ferry Road down at Kettering.  I have previously warned that someone is going to die on this road unless the Government gets its act together.  I want to make it very clear that we are facing a very serious situation at Ferry Road.

For those who came in late, and Mr Butler knows this because he was at a public meeting on this matter on 5 February this year, we have a very dangerous roadway down there, particularly for pedestrians.  The road is not capable of not handling the volume of traffic that goes along it because this is the road along which people drive when they are heading to the Bruny Island ferry.  On busy days when the ferry car park is full the queue for the ferry backs up, and I have seen it back up nearly to the Channel Highway along Ferry Road.  There is actually nowhere to pull off on the side of the road because there is a sloping gravel shoulder, so the queue more or less takes up the full left-hand half of the road, that is the northern part as you travel east, thereby leaving only half the road for two directions of traffic to navigate.

This road does have a blind corner on it, very close to the turn-off to the Bruny Island ferry carpark.  I have seen footage of residents coming along that road on the wrong side, around a blind corner and having to pull into driveways at some speed just to avoid having head-on collisions with vehicles travelling west.  There are also no footpaths on Ferry Road and people walking down to the shop or along the road for any reason are forced to choose between walking on the road or walking on quite a steep and loose gravel shoulder that would, if you fell off it at the wrong place, put you into Little Oyster Cove.

That is all bad enough but we also have a significant sewage problem down there, significant pollution issues in Little Oyster Cove and the associated health risks from very high levels of a number of organisms, including E.coli.  The 5 February public meeting unfortunately I was not able to attend.  I received notice very late that that meeting was being called and unfortunately I could not attend.  I conveyed that to a few people who got in touch with my office on the day to let me know about it but due to a prior commitment I could not attend.  At that meeting my understanding is that DIER’s proposal for a sewage treatment plant to be built adjacent to Ferry Wharf was overwhelmingly rejected by the meeting.  If Mr Butler has contrary views, because he was there -

Mr Butler – No, about 80 votes to 5.

Mr McKIM – Yes, Mr Butler has just confirmed that that is the case.

I want to be very clear about what I think needs to occur here.  What we need firstly is a holistic approach to the issue.  What should happen is that Kingborough Council should get together with DIER and any other State government agency that has an interest in this matter.  They should get together with the local community and work towards developing sewerage and road safety options that have broad community support and resolve the major unaddressed issues that have existed on Ferry Road for a number of years now.  I was talking about this prior to the 2006 election campaign, so it is now three years-plus that I have been talking about this issue.  I have raised it in Parliament on a number of occasions and still it is not even on DIER’s forward planning of roadworks in Tasmania.

This is a key part of the tourist route through Tasmania.  Bruny Island is a fantastic place.  I used to go surfing down there when I was a fair bit younger and fitter.  I have spent a lot of my formative years on that island.  It is a great place and I encourage people to go there, but quite frankly the goat track that passes as a road that leads from the Channel Highway down to the Bruny Island ferry terminal at Kettering is an embarrassment, a disgrace and downright dangerous.  I warn again that someone, probably a pedestrian, will die on that road at some stage in the future unless we fix it up.  I believe the State Government should be driving this issue and ensuring that DIER is working with the community to develop road safety and, importantly, to develop sewerage options that have the support of the community that deal with the run-off issues that exist at the moment into Little Oyster Cover.  They should come up with a holistic, creative solution to this problem.  It is not beyond the capacity of the Government, Kingborough Council and the community to work together to solve this problem.  What we need is political will and the Government to take this issue seriously.  I will continue to get up on a regular basis in this place and draw the issue of Ferry Road to the attention of the House and the Government until it is fixed.