Project update February 2019

PREFERRED OPTION: 
FORESHORE LAYOUT STAYS THE SAME WITH TWO-WAY TRAFFIC AND NO LOSS OF CAR PARKS ON THE FORESHORE.

We understand that of late, residents have been wondering what’s happening with the Port Campbell Town Centre Project.  While there was a burst of activity last year with a lot of community feedback on the concepts - particularly the bold proposal to close Cairns Street along the foreshore - the project has been relatively quiet since late 2018. 

In this time we have been back and forth with the design team, have sought independent advice from the Victorian Design Review Panel, and in truth, have wrestled with a way forward. This project was never going to be rushed, and it was never going to be straight-forward or easy. We have listened. The foreshore area will remain largely the same with two-way traffic and no loss of car parks. Now we have reached a stage where the project needs to move ahead.

Community ideas and input into the first concepts included a ‘wider town’ with connected walking loops between the town centre and headlands; more pedestrian space and seating under the Norfolk pines; better linkages, clearer pedestrian crossings; and creating a ‘town green’ feeling on the foreshore. 

The concept plan we are presenting now as the ‘preferred option’ is a good balance of what the community has told us it wants (of car parking and road layouts), and a move to transform the town centre into a destination that encourages visitors to walk and spend more time enjoying the town, while allowing locals their conveniences and easy access to the parts of Port Campbell they love the most. 

We want locals genuinely invested in this project, after all, locals are the ones who have to live with it. The feedback on the overall concepts, to date, has been impassioned and varied (except for the clear message on Cairns Street and the foreshore). Thank you to residents for getting involved and having a say.

At the same time, streetscape projects can be divisive. Hard decisions have to be made. Everyone has different opinions, motivations and interests, and not everyone will be completely happy with all the proposed changes. To do nothing is not an option with international day trips to the Twelve Apostles and Port Campbell forecast to double by 2025 and the streetscape currently looking and functioning the way it does.