RAW protestors gathered beside the children’s playground in Easton Park, Rozelle, this morning in front of the drilling rig which was set up by the Sydney Motorway Corporation (SMC) to take bore samples for the proposed Iron Cove Tunnel (ICT). The ICT would link the huge yet-to-be approved Stage 3 Rozelle interchange with the Iron Cove Bridge. There would be five outbound lanes in total (three on Victoria Road and two from the proposed ICT) attempting to merge with the two existing lanes on the Iron Cove Bridge. A spokesperson for RAW NW Rozelle, David Watson, said ‘This would result in total traffic chaos with cars and trucks banking back to the CBD and beyond. The ICT and the City West Link would also be at a standstill. The situation is bad enough now. This would make it so much worse.’
‘The popular children’s playground in Easton Park would be showered with cancer-causing diesel particulate matter from the two unfiltered exhaust stacks just a short distance away’, said RAW Convenor Peter Hehir. ‘The promised green-topped Rozelle goods yard interchange, with its dozens of Open Ventilation Portals, sited just across the road from the playground, is referred to by locals here as “Baird’s Toxic Park”.’
RAW’s huge nine-metre NO WESTCONNEX banner was hung across the entrance to the drilling site. SMC workers were waiting across Lilyfield Road but made no attempt to enter the site. The other RAW banner is erected across Darling Street opposite the Sackville Hotel.
Iconic inner-west businesses like Gillespies, Ironwood and Swadlings (across the road from Easton Park) will be forced to relocate out of area. These businesses are slated for eviction in October along with the 13 occupants of the low-income accommodation at 78 Lilyfield Rd (known as ‘the Pink Palace’), alongside Gillespies – and all have been served their notices. This has happened prior to WestConnex’s Stage 3 reference design details and Environmental Impact Statement being made public, much less approved.
