By Ann Marie Angebrandt
UP TO $80,000 could be spent in Wattle Ave on repeated attempts to get the speed humps right.
The Wyndham City Council is now considering the third change to the humps in a drawn-out debate with residents over the noise they make.
Three rubber humps were first installed on the Werribee street two years ago to slow speeding vehicles on the street, which has a 50 kilometres-an-hour speed limit.
Less than a year later, the rubber speed humps were replaced by less noisy concrete ones after a few residents complained they had been forced to relocate bedrooms and install double-glazed windows to escape the noise of thumping vehicles. Now the council is considering adding a further $36,000 to the $44,000 already spent, to rip up one of the humps and install a raised platform at a new location.
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Cr Heather Marcus said the council had spent as much time and effort on this issue as it had on large multi-million-dollar projects.
“This has been an extremely hard one to deal with, but safety is paramount,” she said.
A $6,000 acoustic report commissioned by the council showed speed hump noises in Wattle Ave were no louder than those in Virgilia Dr and Pannam Dr, where there are similar humps, but no complaints.
Cr Kim McAliney cautioned the councillors against changing the humps in a third attempt to get it right.
“If we do it for this street, we are setting a precedent for every citizen who has an issue with speed humps in the future,” she said.
Wattle St resident Lou Mesina said he did not see the need for the humps to begin with.
“We lived here no problems for five years without them,” he said.
“I’m getting so fed up that I now want to sell up and get out.”
The new plan will go ahead only if newly affected residents agree.
Meanwhile, residents in nearby Edwards Rd have successfully petitioned the council to change a rubber speed hump in their street to a concrete raised platform.
