By Geoff Vivian
REGIONAL Development Minister Alannah MacTiernan will consider splitting a $7.6million Royalties for Regions grant, allowing Denmark Shire to proceed with its new industrial subdivision if Council cannot agree on a suitable site for the East River Link.
The position is a backflip from an earlier stance during her visit to the region last week when she said splitting the funding for the projects was pointless. “If you can’t get a road into the industrial estate there’s probably not much point in building the estate,” she said at the time.
The issue was raised because community members were concerned the industrial subdivision project might be abandoned if Council failed to agree on a location for the new bridge across the Denmark River. “I do think they have to be considered jointly,” Ms MacTiernan said.
“It just wouldn’t make sense to build the industrial estate until you have actually sorted out how you are going to get traffic in and out of it.”
But the Minister’s change of mind was later confirmed by a spokesman from her office, once she had returned to Perth following the visit.
“The Minister has met with the Shire, and the State Government is open to the idea of splitting the Denmark East precinct project,” the spokesman said.
Ms MacTiernan had already agreed to a four-month extension to the $7.6million Royalties for Regions funding agreement.
“They had a milestone to meet, technically we could have said ‘you’ve missed your milestone, end of agreement’ but we’re not saying that,” she said.
“We’ve had strong representations from the council and from local Labor member Sally Talbot asking that we give them more time and so we’ve agreed to do that.
“But we’ve had to make it very clear to them that with the absolutely appalling state of the budget there’s not going to be more money.”
The proposed industrial estate is on land west of McIntosh Road.
The existing $14.3million budget for the project includes $7.6million from Royalties for Regions, $2.5million from Landcorp and $4.2million shire funds.
