Work will continue on Wagga City Council’s Active Travel Plan following an injection of nearly $5 million in funding. Photo: Wagga City Council.
Wagga Wagga City Council (WWCC) has revealed nearly $5 million in funding will be put towards developing the cycling and walking trail on Plumpton Road, which will be completed alongside the $50 million roadworks project slated for the road next year.
WWCC Manager City Growth and Regional Assets Ben Creighton said the decision to complete both works at the same time was to minimise delays and the impact on people living between Red Hill and Rowan roads.
“Last night, WWCC endorsed accepting $4.8 million worth of funding to upgrade and extend the Plumpton Road active travel path. Essentially, this path will connect from Red Hill Road through to Rowan Road at the new southern growth area,” he said.
“It’s a really important path into the future, because this is where we know the growth area of the city is going to be.
“One of the important things is the fact that the Plumpton Road upgrade is occurring, and we really want to deliver the projects at the same time.
“It wouldn’t make much sense for us to deliver an upgrade project and go back and have to do construction and impact the residents for a second time.
“So the focus in this case was actually making sure that we can deliver the infrastructure, both active travel and the roads at the same time.”
The work on Springvale’s active travel paths has overtaken other sections of Wagga, which are still waiting on appropriate funding to continue construction, including the Forest Hill link from Kooringal Road to Elizabeth Avenue.
Mr Creighton said the decision to continue with some of the other routes came down to council’s ability to secure funding for those projects.
“I think if you look at some over the past year, we’ve been able to secure funding from the State Government, and we continue to roll out the program,” he said.
“There have also been designs for additional areas within the city, out to the western part of the city, both to the southwest and to the west, out towards the Pomingalarna precinct, as well as out to the north.
“Those detailed plans are sitting there. It’s just a matter of when we can secure the state funding to enable us to deliver those projects.”
Wagga Mayor Dallas Tout said the completed routes had proved a major success story for the city, with countless runners and cyclists using the paths each day.
“The State Government do have an appetite for it, but also so do communities,” Cr Tout said.
“I remember when the first routes went in, people were thinking, ‘What is this stuff?’ But now it’s like a freeway out there. So we’re always going to put in for funding to continue expanding.”
