Page 1699 - Week 06 - Thursday, 3 June 2021
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The local community council did approve the plans in the master plan for Woden and those are the plans that are being delivered now. They are not being delivered by government. Individual construction is certainly being approved by the independent Planning and Land Authority but of course they are being delivered by commercial interests for the people of Woden.
MRS JONES: Minister, why is there such a vast difference between what is allowed in the two different town centres?
MR GENTLEMAN: The National Capital Plan.
MR HANSON: What are you going to do to address community concerns which were shown in the last election that residents are concerned about development at the Woden town centre if it is not properly done?
MR GENTLEMAN: We have been working of course with the community of Woden, during the development of the master plan and the delivery of development after the master plan, and we will continue to work with them well into the future. As I said this morning in my statement, we are expecting 583,000 people in the ACT in the not-too-distant future. We need to plan well for that. We need to plan for density in local centres, along transport corridors to ensure efficiency—
Mrs Jones: On a point of order, Madam Speaker: while the minister’s speech is very interesting, the question was what is he doing about the community concern. What exactly is being done about the community concern?
MADAM SPEAKER: The minister has been responding as far as the planning attributes and also the input from community into different aspects of the plan. He still has a minute-plus to go in his answer. Minister.
MR GENTLEMAN: We are working with the community on those concerns to see how we can address them.
Planning—Woden town centre transport
MR HANSON: My question is to the Minister for Transport and City Services. Woden bus interchange is a major transport hub for Canberra’s south. The government is reducing the size of the interchange by removing the two functional and safe bus loops and moving the buses to Callam Street, along with the light rail. The September 2020 Veitch Lister Consulting report on infrastructure requirements revealed that the design brings up numerous safety concerns, and it recommended an operational risk assessment to determine if the facility could operate safely. The January 2021 Jacobs traffic modelling revealed that further investigation was required to address issues on the road network in Woden so it could operate satisfactorily for coming decades. Can you table the traffic modelling that demonstrates that there is enough future capacity in the proposed bus interchange?
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