Perth Voice Interactive

STIRLING city council is taken by Malcolm Turnbull’s Smart Cities Plan.

Following a visit by assistant cities minister Angus Taylor last week (“Bayswater ‘prime’ for Turnbull cash‚“ Voice, June 4, 2016), the council is preparing a submission which in draft forms praises the PM’s commitment to infrastructure spending.

57,000 jobs

The submission warns that unless Stirling gets its share of federal funding, the development of the Stirling City Centre and Osborne Park into commercial precincts supporting nearly 57,000 jobs will be compromised.

“There will be inadequate infrastructure to support the increased population and economic activities in the area,” the draft report says.

A staff report with the plan got pretty huffy about public transport spending, saying the Barnett government should be dobbed in for not have a decent plan or sufficient funding, but that didn’t quite make it into the submission.

The submission does, however, tackle Mr Turnbull’s plan for a “simplistic” aim of making travel times to work no more than 30 minutes.

“There is no discussion on the various transport modes that facilitate this 30-minute accessibility.

“Given it is a clearly understood urban planning principle that not all transport modes should be treated equally, this appears to be a key oversight of the 30-minute city concept of the Smart Cities Plan,” the submission says.

The council will also try to have some of its projects assessed by a $50m infrastructure financing unit, which Mr Turnbull wants to use to ensure the federal government gets a return on its grants.

“The Smart Cities Plan places considerable emphasis on value capture.

“This would place the city’s infrastructure proposals (for example the light rail planned to run from the Stirling activity centre through the Herdsman Glendalough project area) in a good position to qualify for such investment,” the report said.