Darwin housing estate residents call for action on long-awaited infrastructure upgrades

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Residents of an outer suburban street in Darwin are living in development limbo and suffering major infrastructure deficiencies.   Once a row of bush blocks, Boulter Road was earmarked for improvements but that hasn't materialised in ten years, and hundreds of new houses have now risen from the ground.

Transcript

00:00Once paddocks, now suburbia.

00:05As far back as 2010, long before the housing subdivisions,

00:09plans were drawn up for improvements along Bolter Road.

00:13They had roads, they had shops, they had roundabouts.

00:16Everything was planned out.

00:17There are now more than 200 houses here with more still planned.

00:21There's a school and a childcare centre,

00:24but residents say development has outpaced the infrastructure.

00:28I don't know what happened to the plan once a couple of years float by.

00:31I just sort of thought, oh well, what happened to it?

00:34Lighting and stormwater upgrades are the only improvements so far.

00:38The area is still mostly unsupported by mail delivery.

00:42There are no footpaths.

00:43The road falls apart during the wet season

00:46and it's fast becoming a dangerous highway.

00:49The traffic is madness.

00:50Obviously it comes and goes different times of the day,

00:53but about this time of day, as you hear in the background,

00:57it doesn't, it won't stop.

00:59The lack of pedestrian access forces families,

01:02including the elderly, disabled and children,

01:05onto the increasingly busy road.

01:08People that we deal with are all vulnerable

01:10and require access to public transport,

01:13which means they have to walk back and forth.

01:15There is no footpaths for them to safely do that.

01:18It will be only a matter of time before someone gets cleaned up.

01:20The local member says the money needed to reseal Balter Road

01:24has never been allocated by the Territory Government

01:26and the lack of footpaths is a council issue.

01:29What I want to see from Darwin City Council

01:31and from the Territory Government,

01:33this has to be a priority for both.

01:35The local councillor wants to see better planning in future

01:38before residents move in.

01:40We need to be considerate that when we're planning these developments,

01:44that these roads and infrastructure established

01:46before developments are established.

01:48It's only fair in keeping it safe,

01:50but equitable for everyone as well.

01:52With no clear timeline for works,

01:55it's a waiting game.

01:56It's a waiting game.

01:57It's a waiting game.

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