Hannah Hammoud
The unsealed section of Old Geelong Road in Brooklyn is set to be sealed following an agreement between the state government and Brimbank council.
The state government announced shared grant funding of $5 million will be made available to councils to seal local roads and help reduce airborne dust pollution.
Brimbank mayor Bruce Lancashire said council will accept part of the $5 million funding for the sealing of local roads and will put the money towards sealing the Old Geelong Road in Brooklyn.
“Brimbank City Council is pleased to hear that the Victorian government is taking air quality issues seriously in Melbourne’s inner west, and commend them for allocating funding to address this problem,” Cr Lancashire said
Melbourne’s inner west experiences significantly higher volumes of heavy vehicle traffic than other parts of Melbourne due to its high concentration of industrial uses.
Traffic on unsealed dirt roads, like the Old Geelong Road in Brooklyn, causes dust to be stirred up and pollutes the local air quality.
The announcement included $15 million to target truck operators who regularly use inner western roads and make grants available to support a transition to trucks that produce fewer emissions.
The Department of Transport and Planning worked with Brimbank, Hobsons Bay and Maribyrnong councils to establish a list of potential local roads that most strongly met the program’s criteria.
The community was also able to provide input for improvements to air quality in the inner west through the Inner West Air Quality Community Reference Group that was established in 2018.
The group met 22 times to investigate and better understand local air pollution issues, concerns, and sources across the Brimbank, Hobsons Bay and Maribyrnong local government areas, which have informed the next steps to tackling air pollution in the inner west.
Details: dtp.vic.gov.au/ports-and-freight/clean-air-for-the-inner-west.
