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- 2 March 2005
New England Highway Funding
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Page: 14486
Mr JOHN PRICE (Maitland) [1.29 p.m.]: Before I speak about tourism and access to tourist activities, I congratulate Maitland City Council and its Steamfest Committee under the chairmanship of Councillor Garnham on its success in the tourism awards. Steamfest took out first place in its category at the New South Wales Tourism Awards in Sydney in 2004 and qualified for the national awards for the second consecutive year. Although it did not get the national award this year, it was ranked as one of the eight best events in Australia at the national tourism awards held in Alice Springs earlier this year.
The award recognises that Steamfest is a major tourist icon in the State. Last year saw the completion of the third year of the flagship funding through the Department of Tourism in New South Wales, and we look forward to the staging of the event this year. It will be officially opened at Maitland on 13 April and an exciting program of activities is planned to commence on 15 April and continue until 17 April. It will be a top event for every steam buff, regardless of whether their preference is for steam trains, steam engines or steamrollers! They all arrive in town and there is literally no room to move. The population increases to about 70, 000 during the festivities. Half the town is sealed off, which infuriates motorists, and there is inadequate parking.
This brings me to the question of access to major tourist events. We still have problems with the New England Highway between Beresfield and Maitland. That section of the highway is currently leased or operated by the Federal Government as the temporary Highway 1 and several problems are associated with that. One problem relates to the access at Beresfield from Weakleys Drive, which has been the subject of long-running interchange between State and Federal administrations in regard to a flyover. The Federal funding that was promised has not been forthcoming to enable the preferred option to proceed. That is in spite of the State Government having already advanced some of that work by providing $7 million two years ago to establish a link road between Thornton and Beresfield that would ultimately link up with Weakleys Drive by way of an overpass or interchange.
The problem has been compounded by the speed zoning further along from the traffic lights at Thornton, where a 90-kilometre zone is in place up to the Four Mile Creek, where it drops back to 80 kilometres. The speed limit was lowered as a result of a fatality at the junction of Seven Seas Drive as motorists approach East Maitland, at the end of Ashtonfield. The Roads and Traffic Authority is currently investigating the speed zoning from Metford TAFE on the highway right through to East Maitland. A number of intersections, unless approached carefully, can be quite dangerous. Although several changes to the speed limit and the approaches to those intersections have been made, tremendous risks are still involved on that stretch of the New England Highway.
Federal funding is required because of the safety issue. It is important that the issue is resolved as soon as possible—that is, the Weakleys Drive interchange and its connection to the link road between Beresfield and Thornton, and also the speed zoning from Four Mile Creek right through to Maitland City. It is a major problem and lives have been lost at that location. There will be even greater loss of life unless action is taken. We need to get off the political bandwagon and tackle the road safety issue. We need funding to improve this bottleneck so that motorists feel comfortable and safe in the knowledge that they are in the safest possible circumstances for driving in the electorate of Maitland and beyond. This important issue impacts on local tourist activities as well as the daily lives of members of the community. The problem must be addressed as a matter of urgency and I appeal to the Minister to do everything he can to liaise with his Federal counterpart to make sure that something happens soon.
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