Problems down the track

We are seeing a trend in Tasmania towards disused railway lines being converted to bike and walking trails; the lines themselves and sleepers being pulled up, the ballast spread to make a suitable pathway for bikes and the title to the land proposed to be transferred to the local council.

It is already happening in the north-east and is being mooted in the south as well.

I understand the argument that these lines, if left in tact, carry a high maintenance cost with no prospect of recouping that cost from commercial users, since there are none. However, I wonder if, in the decades to come, the decision to rip out the railway line might be viewed as having been short-sighted. Once gone, they will never be replaced.

However, removing this once important piece of infrastructure and opening the gate to the general public to meander through the backblocks of scores if not hundreds of private farming properties carries risks, responsibilities and implications. I am not convinced the authorities have thought them through.

I am talking about biosecurity, trespass, vandalism and theft and that does not even address the question of equity – should the tracts of land not have been offered back to the properties that originally had to cede them to make way for the railway?

The question of equity aside, the issue of abandoned infrastructure aside, the Tasmanian Farmers and Graziers Association does not have a problem with bike and walking trails per se, but farmers do have a right to be heard when their land is affected by a change of use by a neighbour. After all, that is what an equitable planning system is supposed to be about.

Modern land management imposes rights and responsibilities on all parties. That includes users. Public thoroughfares passing through the middle of land that is a business asset in itself and that also carries crops and/or livestock bring considerable risk.

The concept of biosecurity is the prevention of weeds, pests and diseases and wildfire encroaching on another’s land. We are entitled to ask what capacity the new owner of the land, the local government body, has to ensure the continued biosecurity of its new neighbours.

Does the Dorset Council, for instance, have the resources to maintain the new land in its possession? Can it keep the weeds down? Can it ensure that there is not an added fire risk arising from the new use?

And how do we, as the neighbouring landowner, maintain vigilance over our assets when we have no control whatsoever on who may interfere with our security or trespass on our land?

These are legitimate questions for us to ask, yet we have not been properly consulted over this new phenomenon. It has tended to be a conversation between the rail authority, recreational users’ groups and local government. Again, what we have here is a failure to communicate.

This issue is bigger than one local council. This threatens to become a statewide phenomenon.

The appropriate mediator here is the state government. It has to be a policy issue that they must address rather than let the alienation of railway land be decided by individual councils and interest groups.

It is not simply a matter of the rail authority saying this has got too hard for us, how would you like a bike trail?
TFGA president Wayne Johnston