West Hindmarsh, Ashford, Richmond residents told their homes will be bulldozed for North-South Corridor project

Owners of hundreds more properties have been told their homes and businesses will be razed for the final stage of the South Rd upgrade.

Owners of more than 220 properties between Anzac Highway and the River Torrens are being told their homes and businesses will be bulldozed to make way for the final stage of the North-South Corridor project – but not until late 2024.

These are the last of the property acquisitions that will occur as part of the $9.9bn road project.

It comes as a parliamentary inquiry into the project is launched amid claims by the opposition that out-of-date valuations may be used to acquire to properties.

But the state government rubbished those claims, saying residents would be able to receive updated valuations as late as mid-2023, when acquisitions would need to be finalised.

They could also opt to have acquisitions made quickly and lease back homes until the government needed them.

Letters from the Transport Department began arriving in 224 letterboxes in West Hindmarsh, Ashford and Richmond on Thursday, advising owners their properties would be acquired by the state government at the end of 2024, with the acquisition process set to begin in mid-to-late 2022.

Transport Minister Corey Wingard said the department aimed to give residents “as much flexibility as possible regarding their departure date and help ... through the acquisition process”.

West Hindmarsh resident George Czerwinski, 70, said the loss of his family home of 32 years would be a “killer”.

George Czerwinski outside his West Hindmarsh home, which will be acquired for the North-South Corridor project. Picture: Patrick James

An elevated ramp will take motorists from the south directly and non-stop from the Torrens to Darlington motorway to Anzac Highway on a new overpass over the interchange at South Road. Supplied: SA Government

“Where am I gonna get something like this somewhere else?” he said.

“The issue’s always gonna be ‘are they going to compensate us enough for what we’ve put in here?’”

A total of 393 properties will be acquired for the project.

More than 100 properties in Glandore will be razed at the end of 2023, and more than 60 in Clovelly Park at the end of 2022.

In each case, acquisitions will have to be finalised six months prior, with fresh valuations available up to that point.

Also on Thursday, parliament’s Public Works Committee voted to investigate the project, including the process used to determinewhich properties would be acquired; the methodology used to calculate valuations of properties to be acquired; and the consultationprocess.

Labor’s transport spokesman Tom Koutsantonis said: “We are being told the department is using old property valuations to acquireproperties in 2022 that will not be needed until 2024.” Mr Wingard said Labor, when in government, “didn’t have the guts to face the community” and take on the hardest part of the North-South Corridor.

A map of South Road showing the area in which properties will be acquired for the Torrens to Darlington section near Glandore.

Meanwhile, South Road Inner West Action Group, which represents more than 1000 members of West Torrens Council community’s frustrated western suburbs residents, are calling on Mr Wingard to hold off making any decisions on the design of the final stage of the project’s northern section until they have been properly consulted on the plan.

Originally published as West Hindmarsh, Ashford, Richmond residents told their homes will be bulldozed for North-South Corridor project