By XAVIER SMERDON
WATTON Street should be closed to traffic during certain hours of the day to avoid a major accident, one resident claims.
Michael Young from Werribee raised his concerns of drivers doing illegal U-turns and pedestrians playing chicken with cars at last week’s council meeting.
Mr Young asked if the council would consider closing the main street to traffic daily, including Saturday’s, between the hours of 9am and 4.30pm once a nearby multi-storey car park was built, as has been flagged in recent city centre plans.
“We can’t wait 10 years for the Development Plan to be completed before we address this, it is an issue for now,” Mr Young told Star.
“We should also not wait until there is a major incident and someone is hurt or worse.”
Mr Young said if the council did not approve of his idea, then they should at least consider reducing the speed limit to 40 kilometres an hour to discourage people using the street as a through road.
“Drivers need to be re-educated now that it is too busy during the day for Watton St to handle through traffic as well, particularly between Bridge and Wedge streets,” he said.
But Wyndham Council’s acting CEO Steven Lambert said the solution would create more problems.
“The draft Werribee City Centre Structure Plan was recently exhibited as Planning Scheme Amendment C150. It does not contain a proposal to close Watton St to traffic as we believe this would have a negative impact on trade, as well as on traffic flow,” Mr Lambert said.
“The experience in other activity centres, such as Geelong and Parramatta, where roads have been closed to create malls, is that the malls have later been re-opened to traffic.
“The absence of traffic negatively impacted on trade and created social concerns through lack of activity in the area.”
