‘Sneaky’ claims over Cross River Rail change

The State Government has been accused of trying to “slide” through changes to a Cross River Rail construction site that could impact nearby residents.

Trucks could soon be heaving to and from a busy Cross River Rail construction site in Brisbane’s CBD on Sundays, abandoning the project’s initial plans of six days a week.

The Opposition has seized upon the revelation with transport spokesman Steve Minnikin claiming residents would no longer have a peaceful Sunday.

According to a recent CRR ‘Works Notice’, the project wants to change the working hours at its Roma Street construction site to include haulage and equipment delivery between 9am and 6.30pm on Sundays.

The Cross River Rail site at Roma Street, pictured last week. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Jono Searle

But in a Co-ordinator-General’s report from 2012, there was to be no spoil haulage or delivery of materials on Sundays or public holidays.

Transport Minister Mark Bailey with Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk this week spruiked the $5.4 billion project at a press conference at the Roma Street site, with Mr Bailey saying workers were busy preparing for the arrival of the Tunnel Boring Machines from Woolloongabba mid-year.

LNP transport spokesman Steve Minnikin. Picture: AAP/Glenn Hunt

Mr Minnikin accused the government of being “sneaky” and claimed the project was under both time and cost pressures.

“Why else would you need to whack on a seventh day,” he said.

“Imagine a couple that want at least one day of respite and you can’t even get that now.”

Mr Minnikin accused the government of trying to “slide” the changes through without people noticing.

An artist’s impression of what the Cross River Rail,= Roma Street Precinct will look like.

But CRR wants to minimise disruption during the working week, with the move to reduce the number of trucks accessing the precinct between Monday and Saturday.

Local community consultation was undertaken which included more than 1000 letterbox drops and emails sent to 2765 CRR subscribers, with no significant objections raised.

A start date has not been locked in but is expected to be next month.

How the CRR Roma St site is intended to look upon completion. Picture: Artist’s impression

Mr Bailey said CRR was creating more than 7000 jobs, supporting Queensland businesses and injecting more than $4 million into the Queensland economy every day.

“While the LNP continues their all too predictable verbal digs, we’ll keep digging seven stories down to build south east Queensland’s new underground line and stations to double the rail system’s cross river capacity for a booming SEQ population,” he said.