Makeover of Redfern Station

Published Inner Voice Summer 1994/95

Stumbling across a copy of the Station Concept Plan at Christmas, residents from Little Eveleigh St discovered a new station concourse is planned south of the existing concourse at Lawson Street, connected by four new access walkways one of which runs right along their backyard alignments, and a new station entrance in Little Eveleigh Street.

Early phone calls to the SRA brought a peeved response that the Plan was very much a “preliminary development”, “squiggles on a map”, and there would be lots of time for resident input prior to the lodging of a development application in December 1995.

In next to no time LERAG (Little Eveleigh Street Resident Action Group) was formed. Questions were fired off to the SRA calling for more specific information as to:

• safety to properties
• safety to commuters
• proximity of the new walkway to their properties
• interference with their trees which are not only decorative but provide windbreaks and security
• why the old bridge which provided an exit for passengers to Wilson Street was not being upgraded
• whether their narrow footpath which accommodates only one person at a time would be widened
• whether their narrow street would need to be widened to accommodate traffic at the new station entrance.

Questions were also asked as to whether Redfern Police had been consulted over the plans, especially in relation to the altered station-entrance, and safety and security, and whether the SRA would release its consultants’ report on the “Redfern Station Development Strategy”.

Weeks later and silence has been the SRA’s deafening reply to LERAG.

But it seems South Sydney City Council is aware of the plans. It is a member of a team led by the Department of Transport (DOT) preparing a consultancy brief for a $30,000 study for the redevelopment of Redfern Station to provide a new properly integrated bus/rail interchange together with taxi and “kiss and ride” facilities. The funds for the study are being provided equally by DOT, CityRail and SSROC (Southern Sydney Regional Organisation of Councils) who, with the State Transit Authority and South Sydney Council, comprise the team for this part of a tripartite Integrated Local Area Planning Transport Project under the banner of SSROC.

Judith Miller

Little Eveleigh Street RAG