Hearings for the NSW Parliamentary inquiry into the Windsor Bridge Replacement Project are due to start on April 13.
Lobby group CAWB – which will appear before the inquiry on Friday – stated the 338 submissions it has received overwhelmingly support its long-held position that the “deeply flawed” RMS plan would irrevocably destroy a significant colonial heritage location while “simultaneously and spectacularly failing to deliver strategic infrastructure”.
CAWB has called on state MPs to urgently support its call for work on the project to cease until the inquiry is complete.
“Opposition to this project from the community and from experts has been both longstanding and broad in scale,” a CAWB statement said. “Since 2008 countless experts in traffic, roads, engineering, architecture, planning, landscape design, heritage, history and archaeology have told the RMS [Roads and Maritime Services] the only solution with merit for Windsor is to build a bypass.
“The longstanding recognition of the Thompson Square Precinct for over 100 years as one of great historic significance led to its protection under a Permanent Conservation Order (No. 126) of on July 2, 1982 ‘to control the demolition or alteration of buildings or works; damaging or despoiling a relic, place or land; excavating to expose or move a relic; development of land….’
“Pushing on with their disastrous plan the RMS has not allowed any public viewing of the recently unearthed and extremely significant archaeological finds - including rare early Telford road paving and a complex system of convict built drains and barrel vault drains, perhaps the most significant examples of colonial infrastructure in Australia. ‘Relic, place and land’ are currently at risk of not just despoiling, but complete destruction by the RMS with significant impacts already observed.”
CAWB president Harry Terry said the state government should listen to community and expert advice or “risk being remembered as the government responsible for the wanton and needless destruction of Australian heritage”.
”CAWB’s continuous occupation of the Square is now into its fifth year. What will it take for the NSW Government to pause and listen?” the statement said.
Meanwhile, Macquarie MP Susan Templeman has written to Roads MInister Melinda Pavey requesting public access to the nearby Thompson Square archaeology site.
Ms Templeman said she had viewed the archaeological work associated with the Windsor Bridge Replacement Project during a recent visit to the square, describing what has been uncovered as “unprecedented”.
“I have certainly never seen such a large body of handmade convict bricks and drains,” her April 4 letter stated. “I am advised that they are as old as the sample of brick barrel drain preserved in Parramatta, but this is a much larger area showing far more about early infrastructure.
“Given that the NSW government’s plan is to fill in the site and locate a road across it, the opportunities for the community to view this site are rapidly diminishing.
“It is neither overly costly nor unprecedented to allow public viewing of such a unique site, and on behalf of the local community my request is that, is you refuse to save it in perpetuity, then it be immediately prepared for a short period of public access.
“That access has been extended to other communities in similar circumstances, and should be extended to my community.”
A reply to her letter has not yet been received, she stated.
