WestConnex builders handing out movie tickets to compensate families for maddening late night noise

WESTCONNEX is offering free movie tickets to residents to get their minds off the late night construction noise keeping them awake some nights until 3am.

Aleks, Jon and little Oliver Pocknee, were offered two free tickets to the movies after complaining to WestConnex about night time construction noise. Picture: Carly Earl

HOUSEHOLDERS who complain about being woken late at night by WestConnex construction noise and vibration are being compensated with free movie tickets by the $16.8 billion motorway’s builders.

Others who say their lifestyles are being ruined by work on the M4 East are offered temporary relocation to fully-furnished flats to escape the noise.

Residents living close to construction sites at Haberfield, Concord and Ashfield have contacted the Sydney Motorway Corporation about heavy machinery being used after midnight.

Complaints have also been made about workers using loud concrete cutters and angle grinders while small children in nearby homes are trying to sleep.

One Haberfield couple, with a newborn baby and a toddler, say they are being forced out of their home because of building noise continuing to 3am.

The Pocknee family, including a toddler and a newborn baby, was offered two free movie tickets for being kept awake at night by 3am building work on the M4 East stage of Westconnex. Picture: Carly Earl

Jon and Aleks Pocknee, who live at the edge of a construction site in Martin St, must regularly clean up dust and grit drifting in to their home. Mr Pocknee said they moved to Haberfield from the inner-city to the rented unit about nine months ago to “find somewhere quieter, with fresh air and parkland”.

“When our lease runs out in three months time, we are definitely going to move.

“We were told there would be minimal noise and no heavy machinery during the night hours, nothing on the scale we are having to put up with now.

“The work started about three months ago. They are jack hammering, using concrete cutters and angle grinders two or three nights a week, from 8pm to 3am. Other nights they have the excavators out, moving big rubbish skips around.

“We get worried that the kids are getting covered in dirt and dust. We are sleep-deprived and have constant headaches.”

Mr Pocknee said after they complained, they were visited by two community liaison staff from the motorway builders.

“The came over with two free tickets to the movies to compensate us for the noise. One of the women had about 20 tickets in her bag.

“It was a gesture, I suppose, but they’ll have to compensate a bit harder next time. Maybe a few nights in a city hotel.”

Jozefa Sopski, who lives in nearby Ramsay St, four houses away from a construction zone, said in the lead up to work beginning, the “gigantic” scope of the construction zones was never properly revealed to residents.

“If I had realised the scale of this and the disruption to our lives, and that the vibrations would have a physical effect on my health, I’d have demanded they buy my house.”

Ms Sopski said authorities should be doing everything they can to reduce noise and vibration.

“If they had any goodwill they would not just be out offering cinema tickets and relocations.”

A SMC spokeswoman said it recognises that WestConnex construction work can, at times, create noise impacts for some residents.

“Every effort is made to reduce this impact where possible and last week people from 13 properties around Ramsay St in Haberfield were temporarily relocated while work was carried out to relocate a large water main.

“Due to the complicated nature of this work, project teams gained special approval from the Environmental Protection Authority for activity to continue through the night, beyond normal working hours.

“In addition, some residents in the vicinity of the works were offered movie tickets as a form of respite, an act of goodwill which is not uncommon for projects of this scale.”