LOCAL lobby group Committee for Gippsland has held a meeting with the Roads and Ports Minister, Luke Donnellan, to discuss a number of infrastructure developments.
First published in the 27 February edition of the Warragul & Baw Baw Citizen.
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According to the committee’s CEO Mary Aldred, the primary topics of discussion were the Port of Hastings and the duplication of the Princes Highway between Tralagon and Sale.
“During the meeting, we discussed the ongoing Port of Hastings development and our plans to gain further funding for the project”, Ms Aldred told the Warragul & Baw Baw Citizen.
“We also communicated about the importance of a duplication of the Princes highway between Tralagon and Sale, to increase vehicle productivity. There is currently a large amount of traffic congestion between the two areas.”
The meeting also explored the possibility of more rail services between Gippsland and Melbourne.
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“We discussed increasing the availability of V/Line services,” Ms Aldred said.
“Lots of people have recently moved to the area and are commuting to Melbourne on a regular basis. The reliability of transport services is of upmost importance to commuters and as such, the Committee for Gippsland is advocating for increased services, particularly from Warragul and Drouin.”
Each of the proposed developments raised during the meeting are outlined in the Gippsland Freight Infrastructure Master Plan.
“The plan was released twelve months ago. We (the Committee for Gippsland) spent close to a year conferring with transport services, questioning them about their immediate priorities,” Ms Aldred said.
“We wanted to gain a clear understanding from transport services about the issues.”
The Committee for Gippsland will work closely with the opposition and government, as well as communicating with shadow ministers about the key community issues in Gippsland.
Ms Aldred said that the Committee of Gippsland had been able to build a good relationship with the current government while Labor was in opposition.
Next month the committee will be hosting a meeting to discuss funding for the West Gippsland hospital.
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“The funding for the West Gippsland Hospital is the Committee for Gippsland’s number one strategic priority,” with the group lobbying for a new hospital to be built on land to the west of Warragul.
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