Eds: This is an introduction to a sample submission written by a St Peters resident who has already endured a year of destruction and construction. It will introduce you to the impacts of construction and operation of Stage 3 on her suburb.
You can easily change it for a group submission or use part of it for an information sheet. You can also:
- copy and paste whole or part of this submission for your own submission or share it with others
- use it to trigger your own ideas
- use some it and mix it with objections on other topics relevant to the EIS ( for example Social and Economic Impact).
Here’s the link to our online submission. Remember you can make as many submissions as you like.
Submission to WestConnex New M4/M5 EIS, project number SSI 16_7485
I object to the EIS in its entirety and in particular for its horrific construction and operation impacts on the suburb of St Peters.
I live in Hutchinson Street, St Peters. It’s a small one-way street, entry from Campbell St.
Campbell St and Campbell Rd has lost all of its houses and other buildings to the re-alignment works to take traffic down to the St Peters Interchange, which is being built on an old toxic rubbish dump. Seeing neighbours’ homes demolished was wrenching and on top of that has been the noise, the dust and traffic and night work in case the daylight disruption wasn’t enough. None of this has been reflected in the ‘cumulative impacts’ assessment in the EIS for which there has been no actual assessment at all of the experience of residents during the Stage 2 New M5. This adds to the injury already done.
St Peters Primary School is across Simpson Park in St Peters Street. There’s a zebra crossing to the school’s street the local parents use to walk their children to school, past the demolitions. I can only imagine what it has been like for children seeing the homes of their neighbours knocked down in front of them. But that is not the worst of the story of #WestConnex for our neighbourhood.
Three ventilation stacks for St Peters
St Peters’ three-level interchange is down the hill. There will be a massive double ventilation exhaust stack on the south-western corner of the interchange for the new M5 from Kingsgrove. For the stage 3 of WestConnex (M4-M5 link) we now discover there will another huge ventilation stack for the exit and entries for the tunnels under Newtown to Haberfield and Rozelle on the north western corner of the site.
St Peters School would be “neatly” triangulated between the two sets of stacks which rise up above the Princes Highway. The prevailing winds in our neighbourhood are from the east, so the exhaust from the stacks will blow over the school whether the wind is coming from the south or the north.
Traffic will be worse with Stage 3 – not better
The Environmental Impact Statement for Stage 3 admits that the traffic around St Peters will be worse when both stages are completed. So we will have to put up with the exhaust from the tunnels and the additional car emissions from the traffic. Car emissions are known to shorten the lives of those who live within half a kilometre of a busy roadway. Diesel exhaust from trucks is classed as a carcinogen. ( Read more about this in our Air Quality submission)
It is not surprising that the traffic will be worse because the new M5 and the link from the M4 in Haberfield cannot take a direct route to the airport or Port Botany because the “Sydney Gateway” is not part of this WestConnex road project. The traffic will come out of the interchange and into Bourke and Gardeners roads which are both traffic jams. The whole purpose of WestConnex was supposed to be a better route to the airport and Port Botany and it is not even included.
That is why I am writing a submission to object to the latest Stage of this project. I urge you my neighbours and communities further afield to object as well. We cannot let the state government get away with this assault on our health and our children’s, to create more traffic jams.
If you want to read more of the EIS, you can access it here.
You can search for material in the EIS on St Peters using our search engine. This part of our People’s EIS is not yet finished but you will find material under some key chapter headings such as Traffic and Transport.
Please send a submission now https://thepeopleseis.wordpress.com/make-a-submission-now/
We will be adding more critique of the material relevant to St Peters here. In the meantime, read other sample submissions such as Social and Economic Impacts.
The People's M4/M5 EIS 