Dear Mayor, [Bec Enders Huon Valley Council]
Thank you for your overdue email in response to the two we have sent you. Given our current wrought state, we would rather just meet with [GM] Emilio Reale at this stage please, and obviously if Tim [Hankey, Projects Officer] wanted to come to that meeting, he’d be most welcome.
We are finding this whole process very harrowing and exhausting. My husband has gone to work today despite suffering vertigo all weekend and still feeling ill this morning. He suffers such bouts rarely and only in response to extreme stress. I’ve turned down the opportunity to write three business plans, a quality management system and a marketing campaign to raise money for another of my clients.
Not only have I lost that income because I can’t concentrate on anything except trying to stop this road, but three great little companies, working in the industry sectors Australia needs for the future (climate resiliency, COVID-19 diagnostics and adaptive-wear for young disabled folk), now have the expense of bringing someone else up to speed on their businesses and markets. I’ll never get the chance to work for those companies again.
When we decided to move back to Australia 20 years ago (my husband is from Adelaide), we spent two years off and on looking at properties in SW Western Australia, in Victoria and Tasmania. We were blown away by Tasmania’s beauty, climate and wildness. After looking at multiple plots, we were driven up here by Chris Duggan from TPR [Tasmanian Private Realty], and our hearts immediately began beating faster (I remember it so clearly).
Once we walked through the property and saw the creeks and springs, we were completely smitten. We could have chosen anywhere to spend the rest of our lives, but we chose here. Like the many people who live on Crabtree Road, Lachlan Road and Judds Creek Road,
we do not live here because of the wonderful education system in the valley, fantastic medical services, comprehensive mobile phone/NBN coverage, or the safe highway between here and Hobart.
We live here despite the lack of these things, because we love the land, the wildness, the misty mountains, the serenity and amazing wildlife.
In 2002, when we bought this property, we could not think of a better place to start a family.
The same is true for: the salt-of-the-earth types who have farmed here for generations; the corporate lawyer; retired professor; retired librarian; freelancers like myself; crafters; the neighbour who sells hail-warning software to insurance companies; the gourmet producers and hobby farmers; B&B and Airbnb hosts; and the folks who commute from here to work in Huonville, Kingston and Hobart.
When we asked the real estate agent about the 4WD track, he said: “don’t worry about that – they’ll never build a road over there, it’s far too steep.”
To claim that $147K is being spent on ‘just a conversation’ is disingenuous.
No agency commits $147K unless there is an intent for this to begin a process that could culminate in a road being built.
Otherwise, why indulge in such expenditure?
And where is the business case to justify this expense, that explored all the options for linking the valleys, applied detailed risk assessments to each of those options; undertook research into where and from freight is currently flowing; explored what the industries of the future (eg tourism) actually need to help them grow; and the likely effects of each proposal on communities? Was the cost of this study and that of an eventual road, weighed against all other priorities in the valley and against the objectives in council’s Strategic Plan?
If these things did happen, I’m yet to see the evidence.
Or was it mere pre-election pork-barrelling of the worst kind, promulgated by our previous commissioner at the behest of a single industry lobbyist?
And if you ask leading questions like: “Would you use such a road if it were built?”
You get the answers you want to hear – as any reputable statistician or pollster would agree.
Despite us begging you not to make what we still consider unsafe costs public, these are now in the public domain and will remain forever in people’s minds, despite the $98m for Jefferys not including compulsory acquisitions, work on intersections or ongoing maintenance/safety costs. It is merely a desk study that lacks ground-truthing and is 100% likely to be underestimated.
I’m sure the $48m for upgrading the Plenty Link is also an underestimate, but it is an example of how a $ figure stays in the public consciousness.
Deloitte can’t possibly estimate these additional costs accurately for inclusion in their cost-benefit analysis. A detailed business case and risk assessment prior to this study (or instead of this study) would have applied weightings and financial values to things like fatalities, non-fatal accidents and so on. I believe Hobart City Council uses $7m for a single fatality, and you could expect at least one a year up a steep, icy, often-mist-shrouded road, with limited sightlines. While councils cannot go to such lengths on every project, it is the least to be expected of something of this financial, social and environmental magnitude.
Further doubt is shed on the costs, by council repeatedly saying that no property (other than ourselves) would be affected.
Firstly, that is not our understanding of the little map shown us by Deloitte. It clearly looked as though the proposed route went through two of our near neighbours’ properties. We’ve still yet to see a map that disproves this or shows with accuracy, upon what route through our property the $98m is based.
Also, if more than a few million would be needed to upgrade Jefferys Track into a road suitable for vehicles up to and including bus-size, it would need a road to an AustRoads standard, at least capable of carrying 300+ vehicles per day.
When a 7m pavement width, sealed shoulders and table drains are added together, that comes to around 15m width. That would at the very least require the relocation of multiple fences, plus sheds (including two on our land that now sit within road reserve).
If these costs are not factored in, then the overall figure is unreliable. And since it is impossible to walk on the verges down Crabtree Road owing to drains and steep banks, a footpath would be needed on one side at least. There are several bus stops along Crabtree Road where children and their parents wait for the school bus each morning and evening; they need somewhere safe to wait and to get on and off the bus safely.
We were told last week, that an engineering desk study had to be done on Jefferys “because council had no idea how much it would cost to upgrade Jefferys Track.” Yet we’ve found two previous studies and we informed the commissioner at her 2018 ‘consultation’ meeting that feasibility studies had been undertaken previously. Forestry Tasmania concluded in around 1980 that it would cost over $10m to upgrade only a short section of Jefferys Track into a minimalist logging road (for their use only). This study is not in the public domain, but we have spoken with an engineer who worked on it, and – while our evidence is merely anecdotal – council could have readily obtained a copy of the final report. Inflation since 1980 increases that figure to $40m. Likewise a 1984 thesis by Bob Cotgrove also looks hypothetically at upgrading Jefferys Track and compares the validity of different costing models. This is in the public domain and we discovered it years ago when fighting (ultimately successfully) to form the Russell Ridge Conservation Area in the lead up the forest peace deal of 2013.
Not too late to stop this feasibility study
Lastly, it is not too late to stop this study and divert remaining funds into a re-consideration of the Plenty Link Road.
It was never considered ‘unviable’. It was only deemed uneconomic as a ‘freight-only’ route. Tourism, commuters and other light traffic, were not included in the cost benefit analysis because the chief industry stakeholder did not wish to share the road.
Even the Derwent Valley Council Mayor [Ben Shaw] has said on ABC radio that the Plenty Link is the best option and that the Jacobs analysis needs re-visiting to include all potential users of that route.
Regards,
Jenny Cambers-Smith (for and on behalf of our family of three, and multiple concerned residents of Crabtree).
Huon to Derwent Valley Road Paved with ‘Reckless Dereliction’
Watch a 52 minute GoPro video driving Jefferys Track, recorded 25 August 2020 compliments of Dave Condon, resident of the Huon Valley.
