Education minister Rob Stokes blasted for leaving country as WestConnex battle rages on

EDUCATION Minister Rob Stokes has been criticised for flying out to study at Oxford University while a battle rages to stop WestConnex tunnelling next to a high school.

Federal Labor MP for Grayndler Anthony Albanese and former Labor mayor of Leichhardt Darcy Byrne with parents and students of Sydney Secondary College concerned the site will be used for a WestConnex tunnel construction site.

EDUCATION Minister Rob Stokes has been criticised for flying out to study at Oxford University while a battle rages to stop WestConnex tunnelling next to a high school in Leichhardt.

Students at the Leichhardt Campus of Sydney Secondary College, and their parents, wanted Mr Stokes to immediately push motorway planners to rule out the site in Derbyshire Rd for construction of an access tunnel.

But the Minister was away in the UK completing the final week of a two-year masters of planning.

The Sydney Motorway Corporation has named the old tram sheds next to the school as a potential temporary tunnelling site to help build the proposed underground M4-M5 Link.

SMC has also been examining the Dan Murphy’s bottle shop in Darley Rd, Lilyfield.

Former Leichhardt mayor Darcy Byrne speaks at the anti-WestConnex rally. Picture: Craig Wilson

Education Minister Rob Stokes.

Former Leichhardt mayor Darcy Byrne, who is running for the first Inner West Council election in September, accused Mr Stokes of not standing up for the school.

“Before he jetted off on his sojourn to the UK it would have been decent of the Minister to at least bother responding to concerns expressed by students and parents at Leichhardt,” Mr Byrne said.

“Rob Stokes has the free time to study at Oxford but local students could miss out on university all together if their education is interrupted by noise pollution for several years.”

The Inner West Council, Greens MP for Balmain Jamie Parker and anti-WestConnex group Leichhardt Against WestConnex (LAW) have already called on the NSW Government to abandon plans to dig any access tunnels in Leichhardt or Lilyfield.

Federal Labor MP for Grayndler, Anthony Albanese, met with WestConnex Minister Stuart Ayres last week to tell him that Leichhardt and Lilyfield residents were opposed to a dive site anywhere in Leichhardt.

A block of NSW Government-owned land close to the Leichhardt Campus of Sydney Secondary College is being considered for a tunnel dive-site to help build the proposed WestConnex M4-M5 Link.

Council administrator Richard Pearson said an engineering consultant’s report found that both sites “will impose considerable additional heavy truck movements into an already congested traffic network”.

Mr Albanese also supported the council’s push for SMC to put the dive site at the disused Rozelle rail yards.

Mr Parker said SMC was putting up two equally unsuitable options to split the community.

It has been reported that if the Darley Rd site is chosen, a compensation claim for up to $50 million could be lodged.

M4 widening complete

Woolworths opened the bottle shop in December after subleasing the site from a property development company, which had leased the site from RailCorp.

LAW called on Mr Ayres to explain why the Government may have to make the compensation payout even though SMC’s interest in the site was known by many parties.

“Should the Government have told the lessees last year that any betterment of the site or investment in establishing a new business on it was at their own risk?” spokesman Jennifer Aaron asked.

Mr Stokes said: “I’m deeply concerned by these plans and I am speaking with the relevant ministers.”

A SMC spokesman said more information about the short-listed construction sites will be available when the M4-M5 Link draft design is released in coming weeks.