Gungahlin news

Community & business

The Monster That Ate Canberra is a childrens book written by Michael Salmon in 1972 and became a favorite of many Canberrans ever since.

Now thanks to the hard work of Shawn Cahill you can read the book via Google Earth and explore the locations of the monuments that Alexander Bunyip munched on in the book.

The Google Earth files can be found here.

The Gungahlin Community Council with the support of Michael Salmon are currently lobbying the ACT Government to include a statue of the Bunyip as part of the new Gungahlin library.

 

 

 

 

Planning & development

Regular users of the Gungahlin Drive Extension may have noticed in recent weeks what looks like an off ramp being built where the GDE crosses over the road to Kaleen.

Tony Gill from Roads ACT has confirmed that they are just stock piling some fill/spoil which will in due course be used for sub base for the new dual carriageway when it is finally completed.

The completion of this essential project can't come soon enough for Gungahlin residents that have to endure their daily commute on the GDE.

 

 

 

 

 

Planning & development

Consultants are currently working on the design of an extension of Nudurr Drive between Grampians Street and Gungahlin Drive, which will provide additional access to the new suburb of Crace.

About 250 houses will be developed per year over the next 5 years in Crace, with housing sites expected to be fully developed during 2013. 

In the early planning of Gungahlin, Nudurr Drive was identified as a dual carriageway arterisl road starting at Gundaroo Drive and extending beyond Gungahlin Drive to the Gungahlin Town Centre.

However, following repositioning of the town centre and the rearragement of major roads in the area, Nudurr Drive:
-will remain a sub-arterial road
-will not extend east to Gungahlin Drive
-will not need to be a dual carriageway

Construction is not anticipated to occur before the 2010-2011 financial year.

Design Overview

The extension has been located as far as possible from the adjacent properties in Palmerston.

The road earthworks will still be contained within the road reserve.

A new roundabout is proposed at the Bollard Street intersection, and traffic lights at the Gungahlin Drive intersection.

An earth noise mound is proposed on the property side of the road.

Suitable landscaping is proposed between the existing residences and the new road to soften the visual impact of the new road. This will include scattered trees and shrub planting.

 

 

Planning & development

With site works now under way for the Catholic primary school at Harrison, people have been asking if there will also be a Catholic high school to go with it.

Education Minister Andrew Barr has advised that the proposed location will be adjacent to the planned Throsby district sports fields, opposite the intersection of Horse Park Drive and Anthony Rolfe Drive, as shown on this plan.

The exact location is yet to be finalised though, as the overall design of the new suburb of Throsby is still being planned.

Community & business

Almost three years after we first asked for a childcare centre to be co-located with the Harrison School, it is finally on the cusp of coming true.

The land is to go to auction on 23 June, as explained in this LDA flier.

We recently wrote to Minister Katy Gallagher after she announced two childcare centres would be built by the ACT Government on the southside, to suggest that the Harrison childcare could also be a community-run facility rather than a private operation. No go, she says. It seems the land is too valuable.

Anyway, we'll be glad that Harrison residents may be able to bypass the old 'double drop-off' some time within the next year.

Environment

GCC is keen to develop a proposal for a solar farm, to be lodged in response to ACT Energy Minister’s call for expressions of interest. The ACT Government is proposing funding of $30 million towards the winning proposal.

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Our concept is for a facility located in a highly visible site on the north side, such as near the Federal Highway in the area to be known as Kenny.

GCC's concept is that we want to leverage the Feed-in Tariff (FIT) to allow the community to invest in solar even if they can't afford their own rooftop installation. We wish to form a community cooperative (‘Gungahlin Carbon Neutral’) so people with as little as say $500 could buy a share in a solar income stream via the FIT.

This EOI response would be a major undertaking for GCC, and to pull it off we would need help from interested people with expertise in the field or in developing such engineering proposals.

Are you interested? Please contact Alan Kerlin at president[at]gcc.asn.au

 

Transport

Unfortunately the poor quality road resealing that has been getting rolled out across other parts of Canberra has now come to Gungahlin. A section of formerly smooth Horse Park Drive east of Forde has received the rough and cheap chipseal treatment—how much more will get it we don’t yet know.

GCC has been campaigning against this sub-standard road surface, which has been used this past year on everything from suburban culs de sac to major arterials such as Woden’s Hindmarsh Drive. It is harsh, noisy, and in suburban streets highly inappropriate, making for a hazardous ‘cheese grater’ surface for any of our children unlucky enough to come off their bicycle.

And it doesn’t last. At a recent GCC meeting Roads ACT head Tony Gill conceded that the surface would only last 15 years. Yet he also revealed that the Canberra road resealing program is based on a 20-year cycle. So we are on an unsustainable downward cycle?

Many of us have suspected the ACT Government is allowing Canberra's urban assets to gradually run down, and here was confirmation our suspicions are correct.

The ACT's ALP government needs to put an immediate halt to use of this unacceptable road surface on anything other than rural roads. Or the Liberals and Greens need to call them to account on it. This is a city - not a rural backwater.