Updated draft of Royal Park Master Plan released

The new draft plan comes amid the Victorian Liberal Party’s renewed push to revive the East West Link, which has previously been met with strong pushback from Royal Park advocacy groups.

The Royal Park Master Plan envisions the next 20 years of the park, with one of its key objectives being the preservation of the park’s cultural and environmental significance.

Released on November 25, the new draft plan noted that, “feedback gathered through consultation showed strong community sentiment against an east-west tunnel, or any future transport projects and designs that may impact the current form and function of the park.”

Parkville Association president Rob Moore said the group was concerned about overdevelopment of Royal Park in light of the new draft plan.

“We need clarification on lighting. We certainly would not want to see a path through the centre of the circle, and we don’t believe that any work to be done around Walmsley House, where they proposed a café, or covered barbecues are really necessary in what is traditionally a bush park,” Mr Moore said.

“The setting of Royal Park was always meant to be one of a peaceful park for the community to share, and the great emphasis on sporting facilities and various other things is probably over the top as we have plenty of sporting facilities at Princes Park and within Royal Park already.”

“There probably is a need for an East West Link, but not under Royal Park. The route would have to be totally different … it would be totally unacceptable for any tunnel project to emerge anywhere in Royal Park,” he added. 

Community consultation on the draft Royal Park Master Plan will be open until February 14, 2025.

The Royal Park Protection Group and Friends of Royal Park have previously advocated against the East West Link when the construction contract was first signed in 2014.

At the time, Friends of Royal Park expressed concerns that proposed tunnel entry and exit portals within the park would have destroyed the local biodiversity and landscape.

At the Victorian Planning Panel’s hearing regarding an enquiry into the East West Link in March 2014, nine community groups presented their concerns with the project, with all groups strongly opposing the proposal.

“The groups cannot conceive of a more destructive activity in Royal Park than the construction of a trench up to 120 metres wide and 30 metres deep for 1.4km through the park,” the groups said of the proposed tunnel.

The original plans released in 2014 proposed an 18-kilometre tunnel connecting the Eastern Freeway in Clifton Hill to the Western Ring Rd in Sunshine West, including an entry and exit point in Royal Park.

Former Greens councillor Rohan Leppert campaigned to protect Royal Park from the proposed tunnel when he was first elected to council in 2012.

In a Facebook post in September 2024, Mr Leppert wrote, “Fighting that proposal off was an all-consuming affair for the community that demonstrated to Government just how fiercely loved this place is by Melburnians.”

Victorian opposition leader John Pesutto said the proposal should be brought back onto the agenda while speaking outside state parliament last month.

“The East West Link does need to be built because you’ve got North East Link coming online and the Eastern Freeway will become even more of a car park than it already is,” he said.

The former federal Coalition government set aside $4 billion in the 2020-2021 federal budget for “the first Victorian Government willing to build the East West Link”.

But in 2022, Infrastructure and Transport Minister Catherine King said Labor would not provide that funding, declaring the project “dead”.

The East West Link was first proposed by Ted Baillieu’s Liberal government in 2011.

In 2014, the East West Connect consortium was appointed to finance, design, construct and operate the tollway.

Former Premier Daniel Andrews suspended construction of the project after he was elected premier in 2014, and formally cancelled the construction contract in 2015.

A report published at the time by former acting auditor-general Peter Frost wrote, “The advice provided to the then-government was disproportionately aimed at achieving contract execution prior to the 2014 state election rather than being in the best interests of the project or use of taxpayers’ money.”

The auditor-general’s report found that the cost of axing the project amounted to $1.1 billion.

Mr Pesutto’s calls are the latest in a series of similar attempts by the Liberal Party to bring back the East West Link; Michael O’Brien renewed the Liberal Party’s push for the project during his election campaign in 2021, as did Matthew Guy in 2018. •