WHILE the Derwent Valley Council has given the nod to a design for a proposed rail trail, it has not committed to actually building it. At its meeting last month, the council endorsed the Derwent Valley Rail Trail Feasibility Study and a design for the first stage, but some councillors made it clear they only did so out of fear rejecting it would mean paying back about $500,000 of federal grant funding.
Cr Wayne Shoobridge pointed out the grant had been conditional on council progressing the project. Council chief executive Wes Young told the meeting there had been extensive community consultation and said a clear majority of feedback supported the project.
Cr Phillip Bingley said councillors had no option but to give the green light to fulfil the grant requirements. “If I had the option, I’d vote against it,” Cr Bingley said. “Every dollar we spend on non-core infrastructure is a dollar we take away from crumbling roads, blocked culverts and hazardous footpaths.”
In the end, most councillors voted yes, with mayor Michelle Dracoulis and Cr Sara Lowe abstaining. The first stage of the rail trail is designed to run between Maydena and National Park and future later stages would extend it to Hayes. The feasibility study by consultants WSP estimates the 12.4km first stage would cost $12.2 million.
The report says later stages through Westerway and Glenora to Hayes would be more difficult to construct with multiple bridges and road crossings. It estimates the whole project would cost $82.4 million. A potential future connection to New Norfolk is raised in the feasibility study but it was not part of its scope. The council has not committed to paying for the project and Mr Young said he would make submissions for grant funding for the first stage.
The council will now also get moving on the transfer of the rail corridor from the rail network. Mr Young anticipated this would take a long time and said the council would not end up with deteriorating and disused infrastructure if the project did not go ahead. “We are not locked into building anything if you endorse this tonight,” Mr Young said.
LEENA LAVONIUS
Editor’s note: I was in the room at the council meeting – most likely shaking my head – when councillors Dracoulis and Lowe abstained from voting on the rail trail proposal. They can vote how they like, but under the local government meeting procedures in this state, abstaining is counted as a vote in the negative – two of them in this case, meaning the vote was 4-2. Despite this outcome, the Derwent Valley Gazette website reported Derwent Valley Council chief executive Wes Young as saying: “The vote was unanimously in favour of pushing forward on the back of the detailed feasibility study, and we’re also looking forward to discussing details in depth with all stakeholders, including the Derwent Valley Railway Preservation Society”.
OPINION – by Leena Lavonius
HAVE you been missing the TV series Utopia on the ABC? Found yourself longing for the all-too-realistic workplace comedy set at the fictional Nation Building Authority? I have, but this week I found the perfect remedy. I’ve read the feasibility study into the Derwent Valley Rail Trail and I feel like the next season of Utopia has finally landed.
The document is full of the kind of buzzwords the show skewers so effectively and of course a massive price tag.
A disclaimer: I am not a Derwent Valley local so it’s not up to me whether the rail trail should go ahead. However, I have an opinion.
My last proper holiday involved cycling the Otago Central Rail Trail in New Zealand and my next one could be riding the Great Victorian Rail Trail in the high country. I have also enjoyed a biking holiday in France. For a wuss like me who dislikes riding in traffic, rail trails are fantastic – and they are very popular.
My multi-day biking holidays have been along routes where the trails have sparked a visitor boom with lots of accommodation options and thriving hospitality businesses. Many Kiwi locals told me cheerfully that without the trail their small rural communities would have withered away.
Yet I’m not sure the valley proposal will be quite the drawcard the feasibility study paints it to be, and neither can I see it really helping local people get around. The proposed first stage between Maydena and National Park is just 12km. Even an old plodder like me will easily cover that in less than an hour. Would that entice me to pack up bikes in the car and head to the valley to experience it?
The feasibility study talks up the connection to the mountain biking hub at Maydena, giving something to do for those who are not downhill daredevils. I get that, but I’d question how many of them will head to MTB heaven in the first place.
The trail as proposed is too short: all up, from Maydena to New Norfolk would be about 50km – a leisurely single-day ride, so it would not necessarily tempt day visitors to stay longer in the valley. And to really benefit locals in terms of daily transport, it has to take them somewhere they need to go. Extending the trail to Hayes, let alone New Norfolk, would take a very, very long time. East of National Park the going gets tough for building the trail, with numerous bridge crossings.
And then there is the cost. The first stage alone is estimated to cost $12.2 million. That’s $1 million per kilometre, or $1000 per metre. For a mostly gravel bikeway on an existing rail corridor. The per kilometre cost for the remainder of the way to Hayes would be even higher and the whole thing would come in at an astonishing $82.4 million.
I wonder if valley cyclists would prefer infrastructure in the areas they live in and where it doesn’t involve huge money for fixing up heritage bridges? Reading the $82 million figure was the real Utopia moment for me. On the show, there are lots of glossy reports, announcements and grand plans but nothing ever gets actually built.
At this kind of cost, that may well be the case for the rail trail. It’s up to the valley locals whether that’s funny or not.
Journalist Leena Lavonius is a sub-contractor for New Norfolk and Derwent Valley News and News of the Midlands.
One Response
Don’t hold your breath for anything to happen.
Just like the Bushy Park Pool for us oldiest to have some water therapy!
Nowhere to walk our dogs out National Park way, let along anywhere with green space for barbecues with our best friends – our pooches.
Where from Westerway can tourists get to enjoy our part of the world without barbecues and a place to pull over and meet the locals except for the waterfall area?