Hopes high to fast-track $100m inland link from Yeppoon Rd to Rosslyn Bay

The construction of a critical new road to relieve Capricorn Coast traffic congestion and open up land for more than 2500 house blocks could be finished by 2027.

The East West Connector project will enhance connectivity across the Livingstone Shire by providing the essential transport link between Neils Road (off Rockhampton - Yeppoon Rd) and the Keppel Bay Marina.

The construction of a critical new road to relieve Yeppoon’s traffic congestion and open up land for more than 2500 house blocks could be finished as soon as 2027.

Livingstone Shire Council Mayor Adam Belot met with Deputy Premier Jarrod Bleijie and Keppel MP Nigel Hutton in Brisbane last week to discuss council’s submission to secure funding for its $100 million East West Connector project.

The proposed arterial road starts on Yeppoon Road at the Neils Rd intersection (to be signalised) near Bondoola where it cuts south east through former pineapple farm land, crosses Tanby Road and continues on to Rosslyn Bay.

The East West Connector project will enhance connectivity across Livingstone Shire by providing the essential transport link between Neils Road (off Yeppoon Rd) and the Keppel Bay Marina. The first stage is marked in red. The East West Connector will be located between Yeppoon Road and Rosslyn Bay via the Capricorn Coast Memorial Gardens.

Cr Belot said that route supports residential and commercial development, reduces traffic congestion and links the community to vital tourism assets including Rosslyn Bay Harbour and Keppel Bay Marina.

He said Livingstone was targeting funding from the $2 billion Residential Activation Fund which falls under Mr Bleijie’s portfolio as the Minister for State Development, Infrastructure and Planning.

Cr Belot said that funding pool was available for submissions from regional councils to unlock greenfield sites to bring on supply for residential roads.

“We met with them to ensure we’re on the front foot to make sure they know we have got our submission completed,” he said.

“The importance of this project is incredibly beneficial on two fronts. It unlocks relatively flat residential land that can bring supply into the market which will help with the housing crisis that we have (rental vacancy rate of under 1 per cent).

“That’s what the funding is about, but the other benefit that comes with it is (reducing) the traffic (congestion) along the Capricorn Coast as it has certainly crept up on us in the last few years. We see some really, really problematic threshold points along Tanby Road to the roundabout and the Scenic Highway and with our continued growth that’s only going to get worse.”

Keppel MP Nigel Hutton, Deputy Premier Jarrod Bleijie, Livingstone Mayor Adam Belot and consultant Graham Scott look over plans for the East West Connector.

He said the meeting with Mr Bleijie underlined their position as a “serious contender to be a recipient of that fund given it aligns with their ambition to deliver more housing supply into the market through opening up housing lots”.

“The East West Connector absolutely delivers on that,” he said.

“We need to plan for that growth in the areas that is going to be the most compatible with our town plan and the least amount of impact on congestion and our services and that’s why that area there is by far one of the best locations that you can get through a large-scale residential development over time.

“There are a number of landholders who would be exposed to that East West Connector that would facilitate development applications to be submitted but the good news is that while they are currently zoned rural there’s very little rural activity happening in that space (mostly former pineapple farms) so we’re not targeting prime agricultural land that we want to see continuing that in that type of capacity.”

He said the $25 m first stage of the new road would open up more than 2500 housing lots for development.

“It’s in an area where we want to encourage development to occur around the back of The Pines,” he said.

“We met with the landholders and we had really positive meetings regarding the alignment of the road corridor.

“We’re really looking forward to our submission being seriously considered and importantly we will be shovel ready to go and we’ve already met with the Department of Transport and Main Roads to ensure that they understand not what we’re doing, but why we’re doing it.”

The government funding is expected to be awarded about July and then recipients have approximately two to three years to use the money meaning the East West Connector Road could be completed in 2027/28.

The East West Connector would link Yeppoon Rd (at the Neils Rd intersection) to Roslyn Bay.

“We believe we can deliver on that and we’ve done an enormous amount of work behind the scenes at a micro level to make sure that we are being realistic in what we put are putting forward,” Cr Belot said.

The East West Connector concept has been around for some time but it’s only recently that council changed the alignment to drastically reduce its original cost from $300m to the $100m estimate.

“We identified early that the original alignment through the highest point of the Tanby Ranges would potentially exceed $300 million but that alignment was reviewed and through the professional staff that we got here at Livingstone, another alignment was proposed and has been exhaustively scrutinised,” he said.

“The newly proposed alignment comes out at the lowest part of the saddle in the Tanby Ranges and then connecting with the Mulambin Road crossover at Capricorn Memorial Gardens to pick up that alignment.

“Then it would continue on connecting to Clayton Rd and then skirting around the back of properties to basically the urban footprint of Statue Bay and then coming onto the Mulambin Highway.

“So an enormous amount of preliminary work has been done to investigate a better road corridor, which approximately is looking about $100 million as opposed to over $300 million, so all of a sudden that becomes achievable.”

The Residential Activation Fund stipulates that round one funding prioritises shovel-ready projects, focusing on residential developments where housing infrastructure can be fast-tracked to get more Queenslanders into new homes sooner.

It says local governments and landowners with development applications can apply for funding to build infrastructure for infill or greenfield sites, such as water supply, sewerage, stormwater, power and roads.