Welcome back folks to Connolly’s Corner!
With all the disruption caused by the last COVID outbreak last month, it’s heartening to see that Victoria is currently in a good place. My heart goes out to our friends and family in New South Wales and elsewhere who are battling their own community outbreaks.
If not for the last outbreak however, last month’s Connolly’s Corner would have been dedicated to talking about all the positive outcomes that the Tarneit community received in the recent State Budget.
You would have heard me at the start of the year about all of the work that we’ve done for local schools in our community, with four new schools being built since 2018, and major upgrades at The Grange P-12 College, Hoppers Crossing Secondary College and Dohertys Creek P-9 College. This year’s budget continues to build on those investments.
Tarneit Senior College joins our other two major high schools in the area in receiving upgrades, with $5.81 million funded to complete Stage 3 of the school’s masterplan, catering for another 300 students. And we’re continuing to deliver more schools for Tarneit, with another two land acquisitions for both a primary school and a new secondary school in Tarneit. In addition to this, we’ve also funded construction of the next three schools in the pipeline, with Tarneit Missen House Primary School and Riverdale East Primary School set to open in 2023, and Truganina North Secondary School opening in 2024. And when it comes to this high school, we’re making sure that Truganina families are well-serviced by splitting the school into two campuses with one hopefully located at the school site in Elements Estate, which was a fantastic win for the local community.
In addition to schools, we’re also delivering upon our investments in road infrastructure out in Tarneit, with the $1.8 billion Western Roads Project wrapping up. If you’ve driven down Derrimut Road, then you know that the intersection at Boundary Road is in dire need of an upgrade, and you’d be right. That’s why we’ve invested $2 million to get on with upgrading this intersection and installing permanent traffic signals.
And when it comes to our public transport network, we’re continuing to make solid improvements. Residents are currently enjoying the benefits of the two brand new bus routes that we secured last year – Routes 152 and 182, which are now operating in Truganina and Tarneit respectively. This budget builds on that by funding $12.06 million towards establishing another two new routes to go through the north of our electorate, meaning that growing estates like Elements and Rothwell, as well as even newer estates like Orchard and Verdant Hill, can finally be connected to the bus network.
There’s a lot more to come, and you’ll be hearing from me in this space about all of the great things that our Government is delivering for the Tarneit electorate.
