Blue Mountains council has called for an immediate halt on the Great Western Highway upgrade, in light of doubts cast about the future of the tunnel as well as concerns about safety and lack of consultation.
An urgency motion passed at the June 28 council meeting said there should be a major safety audit of the capacity of Mountains towns to handle 30-metre long trucks.
The motion noted the "general uncertainty" around the highway project, including doubts raised about the Blackheath-Hartley tunnel by Infrastructure NSW.
The motion also recognised the "negative impact" of the works on the village of Medlow Bath and said it should be put on hold "until clarification is obtained regarding the future of the project as a whole".
It further called for consultation with Mid and Lower Mountains communities about the likely increased truck movements and traffic congestion resulting from the Upper Mountains upgrade.
Stephen Caswell, president of the Medlow Bath Action Group, said: "The NSW government duplication project is not just about the central tunnel from Blackheath to Hartley. Any perceived benefits of the tunnel section ignore the impact on every other community in the Blue Mountains. Communities have been calling on the government to get the whole project design 'done right first time'."
READ MORE:
Medlow Bath Residents Association president, Deb Brown, echoed Mr Caswell's call and added an appeal for a business case study into a bypass of Medlow.
"Medlow Bath residents and local business will also benefit from a bypass. Our community deserves to be preserved too," she said. "Don't start at Medlow Bath when a full EIS hasn't been done and where there are still insufficient funds for the central tunnel section. A lot of state and federal money is being thrown at this for what will end up being a very expensive 'tunnel section' and sub optimal east and west sections.
But Transport for NSW told the Gazette it intends to proceed with the Medlow Bath works. A spokeswoman said the $4.5 billion joint state and federal funding covered "100 per cent" of upgrades to the east (Katoomba to Blackheath) and the west (Little Hartley to Lithgow) sections, providing two lanes of traffic in each direction.
"There is also funding to continue the planning and early work for the central section, which has been proposed as an 11-kilometre tunnel from Blackheath to Little Hartley," she said.
