MEMBER for Light Tony Piccolo has called out the previous Gawler Council and his former state department for funding issues related to the Tulloch Road intersection upgrade in Evanston.
Speaking in parliament during Question Time on Thursday, Mr Piccolo said the previous council and the Department of
Planning, Transport and Infrastructure (DPTI) – at the time his Labor party was in power – should have worked together to force a contribution out of developers to help fund any future traffic upgrades needed at the site.
He said development applications from businesses Coles, Bunnings and Aldi – which are now established at the intersection with Main North Road – were at the time not considered to bring enough traffic to the area to warrant individual contributions from developers.
However, since then the increased traffic at the site has proved that assessment wrong.
“If there is one thing that I need to say it is that there was a flaw, which was partly in the development provisions at the
time, but also, in my view, between the council of the day and DPTI,” he said.
“They (Gawler Council and DPTI) did not work together closely enough to ensure that the developers made a contribution to this cost.
“In the end, unfortunately, the taxpayers picked up 100 per cent of the cost of this project when they should not have had to.
“The developers should have made some contribution.
“That is water under the bridge, but we need to learn from these experiences to make sure that a situation like this incrementalism is not allowed to grow in other communities
so that taxpayers have to pick up the whole cost in the end.”
In March, the State Government announced an extra $3.5 million worth of funding to the intersection, on top of the $4
million already promised by the former Weatherill Government.
In his speech, Mr Piccolo also raised concerns about the intersection of Potts Road and Coleman Parade and said part of the reason it was yet to be upgraded was because Gawler
Council had “failed to advocate” on behalf of the residents in the area.
“It is unfortunate that the government has decided not to fund those intersection improvements because it will cause a major
problem for those people who live along Coleman Parade,” he said.
“Having said that, part of the failure has been that the local council has also failed to advocate on that issue – and that was evidence given to the committee.”