Auburn Street, Goulburn residents Meg Perriman, Gillian Webber and Geoff Henderson looking over plans, which they say have been presented as a fait accompli, for a new wombat crossing and cycleway outside the front of their homes. Photo: John Thistleton.
Residents in a Goulburn heritage precinct were stunned after discovering by chance a project worth $500,000 to build a raised pedestrian crossing under seven-metre-high streetlights and a cycleway outside their front fences.
One morning about three weeks ago Fiona Henderson noticed a man coming across the southern end of Auburn Street painting lines on the roadway. He told her about the planned ‘wombat crossing’, a pedestrian platform raised higher than the road, outside her historic home.
Another resident, Gillian Webber, found out about the project after she went to post a letter in the public post box across the road. It wasn’t there.
“I asked the neighbours across the road where was the letterbox and was told it had been moved because they were going to construct a pedestrian crossing,” she said.
The morning after the Hendersons emailed Goulburn Mulwaree Council asking for more information, two council officers attended their address.
“They were coming anyway, to be fair to them, not as a response to the email,” Geoff Henderson said. “We are talking about ‘a minute to midnight’; basically, the road had been marked out, and the mailbox over the road had been taken away because it was in the way of the construction.
“The project had been finalised, funded and past the planning stage before they had the decency to notify the residents who are directly affected,” Geoff said. He said the three-metre-wide cycleway would ruin the soft ambience of the nature strip and, therefore, the street.
Funded by Transport for NSW, the project aims to enhance health, economic and social wellbeing, but left another Auburn Street resident, Meg Perriman, with a headache.
She said she discovered lights 7.5 metres high would be erected above the crossing, which would be spilling light into the homes’ front bedrooms. Six parking spaces on either side of the road will be lost, adding to Meg’s stress.
Photographed in the 1870s, numbers 49, 47 and 45 Auburn Street. No. 45 is included in a list of items of heritage significance as a Victorian Italianate dwelling (circa 1860). It appears to be facing the town, rather than addressing the street. The occupants have shared the image taken in the 1870s, and their affection for their heritage precinct. Photo: Supplied by Shirley Benbow.
“Because our places are old we have no access out the back, the laneway is really narrow, it’s really hard to get in, so we all park out the front,” she said. Under the proposed plans, they will have to park elsewhere. “We love our houses. Look how beautiful they are, and now this horrible wombat crossing,” Meg said.
Seeing the actual plans left Gillian more alarmed. “It is going to irreversibly ruin our street,” she said.
“I have lived here for more than 30 years and thought that was a ridiculous place for a pedestrian crossing because nobody crosses there and we have pedestrian lights one block away for safety,” she said.
“People cross where the shop is (further south along the street) and the bus stop in the morning. The parents don’t drop off their schoolchildren here, they drop them around at Bourke Street or at the gate in Addison Street.”
Resident Shirley Benbow believes the separate cycleway will have a detrimental impact on the plane trees that line Auburn Street. One tree (not a plane tree) would be removed.
Auburn Street resident Nic Heath said the disregard for heritage values was at odds with the council’s refusal to allow him to remove an old peppercorn tree at the rear of his home, which is not visible from the street.
Gillian said consulting first with residents would lead to better planning outcomes.
Meg Perriman, Shirley Benbow and Gillian Webber enjoy the green, tree-lined street outside their homes in Auburn Street, Goulburn. A cycleway is proposed along the nature strip and they have started a petition to protect their ambience. Photo: John Thistleton.
“We all live here; we know there is not the number of cyclists or pedestrians to warrant a separate cycle path,” she said.
A well-designed shared footpath would have been far more appropriate, she said.
The residents have organised an online petition to the council to stop the work and consult with neighbours.
Goulburn Mulwaree Council has been contacted for comment.
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