Darebin Trail is a beautiful piece of public infrastructure that runs through Alphington. You just can’t get to it from Alphington. And you thought ‘You can’t get there from here‘ was supposed to be an absurdist joke…
The Link was committed to in 2017, and after a long process, some milestones have now been met in the long journey to making it fully usable to the local community.
People in La Trobe Golf Course can access the path through a gate off the carpark. The Council has determined after long consideration that the best way to make the path publicly accessible will be a footbridge OVER the Latrobe golf course land to allow people to get from Farm Road to the bike path.
Yes. Rather than arrange public access to the gate, we would rather build a bridge over this small contested piece of land.
Even that will require legislation in the State Parliament and still involves paying La Trobe for a land to support the construction.
How did it come to this?
Vic Road investigated options for making the Darebin Trail section though Alphington, accessible to Alphington. They were looking for the safest, most effective path, but did not see acquiring the complete neck of land owned by La Trobe Golf Course currently used as a path to the practice tees as an option.
As a result negotiations for the public to be able to simply walk from Farm Rd to the path were not forthcoming.
As a result, the footbridge proposal has become the path forward.
$9m footbridge over La Trobe Golf Course, fully funded by the state
Even the footbridge option requires legislation and land acquisition by the state from La Trobe. That legislation has now passed (supported by Kat) and state funding has been secured to fully fund the project.
The funding as a whole is over $9 million. It is not clear how much of that goes to La Trobe, and how much is for construction of the elevated overpass bridge. It is not clear how high the footbridge needs to be, to keep the public clear of the golfers.
As crazy as it is – it is a way forward. The design work is going on now, and there will be opportunities for further public comment in this design phase in the next 2-4 months.
The acquisition of the partial land parcel to support the footbridge is still expected to take time, with many bureaucratic hurdles yet to come. The budget has been secured, so presumably action will follow.
On the other hand, Vic Roads is apparently NOT going to take action to reclaim their land at the end of Old Heidelberg Rd that Alphington Grammar has fenced and taken steps to treat as their own.
This land was not considered appropriate for the public access to the bike path as it would not be appropriate for a bike path to be that close to a playground. The Darebin Trail passes within 10 m of a playground designed for pre-school children at the current access point available to Alphington people at Sparks Reserve.
So all in all – a tricky project.