New Fremantle High Street to cut through the Fremantle Public Golf Club course
The long awaited draft concept plan for upgrades to Fremantle’s High Street has been released for public consultation, Premier Mark McGowan and Transport Minister Rita Saffioti have announced.
The plan developed by Main Roads WA in consultation with the City of Fremantle shows High Street widened significantly between the Carrington Street intersection and Stirling Highway intersection.
A wide median will split a dual carriageway, preserving several mature trees currently on the verge.
The new westbound road would cut into some of the Fremantle Public Golf Club course, the draft concept plan shows, a feature carried over from original plans circa 2012.
A single-lane service road will serve residents north of High Street, running parallel to the netball courts, and the grade will be flattened.
Traffic headed towards the port will be fed through a two-lane roundabout at the Stirling Highway intersection.
Traffic headed away from the port will avoid the roundabout, turning left via a dedicated slip lane to be cut through a handful of properties on High and Holland Streets.
While information was not available for every potentially impacted property, RP Data records show Main Roads has been buying them over the past decade, for prices ranging from $730,000 to just over $2 million.
Margaret Black, 83, has been a resident of Holland Street Fremantle for more than 50 years. Her home is on the cusp of the proposed development, with houses to her left sold to Main Roads in recent years.
The High Street properties adjoining her back fence have also been acquired by the road authority, one for more $2 million in 2015.
She told WAtoday she had not been contacted about the concept plan showing the slip lane built directly behind her back fence.
“I haven’t heard a thing, no letters,” she said.
“Main Roads don’t want my house… the house next door to me, there was two houses there and the owner sold them to Main Roads and got nearly $1 million each.”
“The ones that are behind us on High Street are a disgrace; all falling down and they’re terrible, they’re all rented out … half of them are falling down and trees and shrubs are all overgrown and hanging over the fence,” she said.
“My husband’s been gone 39 years this year, and they were talking about [upgrading the road] before he died.”
The proposed road widening would also impact the northern part of the Fremantle Public Golf Club course.
Evergreen Golf director Andrew Billingham said he supported the proposed changes, as long as a promise for the club to acquire land south of its boundary, in Booyeembara Park, was kept.
“We need the City of Fremantle to come good on its promise,” he said.
“We’ve worked with the city and we have got ourselves in the position where we have a course design done and a clubhouse layout designed and ready.”
The course, which has been leased by Evergreen Gold for 15 years, has been subject to several proposed road changes across differing state governments.
With a remaining six years left on its current lease, Mr Billingham said the club was confident a positive outcome could be achieved for “mum and dad golfers” in the area.
Source: WA Today
