Last night the City of Sydney Council approved the development of the historic tram sheds at Harold Park into a supermarket and retail complex. The City has already approved the development of 1250 apartments on the former horse trotting track. Jamie has been working with residents to ensure the appropriate development of the site for several years. Residents' concerns include the amount of traffic additional entering The Crescent and surrounding streets. The developers own traffic study indicates over 720 additional cars will enter and exit their development in the peak hours adding to already congested roads.
The tram sheds will now be turned into a large scale supermarket of 2345 square meters and additional retail space in excess of 3000 square meters. We managed to convince Council to reduce the size of the supermarket and improve other aspects of the development but there are still many problems. After hundreds of letters and emails and over 50 residents attending the meeting, Council failed to ensure the future safety of the community by permitting traffic to access to the supermarket through the parklands via Chapman Road.
I supported residents who argued parklands should be off limits as a vehicular thoroughfare. They argued entry should only be via the primary access road that is inside the development. I was disappointed the Council did not heed the safety and amenity concerns of the residents. As the park is City of Sydney property we will continue our efforts to make the City restrict access to the supermarket through this busy pedestrian and cycling throughfare.
Jamie thanks all the residents who have worked so tirelessly to promote the sustainable, safe and appropriate development of the site.
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