Residents confront minister as new Keon Park station bring trains metres from apartments

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Furious residents in Melbourne’s north have berated a government minister over a controversial train station. The new Skyrail station opened as a part of the government’s level crossing removal project, leaving trains just metres from homes.

Transcript

00:00And shame on you, shame on you.

00:05The message from furious residents was clear, despite it being drowned out by the now familiar

00:10sounds of trains.

00:15The elevated station and rail bridge at Keon Park is less than five metres from Angela

00:20Villela's balcony.

00:21I'm sitting at my dining table marking and the workers on the platform could actually

00:27see straight into my living room and it's just, it's so intrusive.

00:32Privacy, sound and light disruptions are among her key concerns.

00:37She bought her apartment in 2021, a year before the rail bridge plans were made public.

00:42What sort of consultation was there?

00:45None.

00:46The government disagrees and says the electricity transmission lines meant the station couldn't

00:50be built on its original site.

00:52We work very closely with the impacted residents.

00:55We've done what we can to make the station as far away from the apartments as possible.

01:00The old station was about 100 metres down the track away from these apartments.

01:05Residents here have called for privacy screens and double glazed windows, but instead they

01:10were offered noise cancelling headphones.

01:13A remedy that doesn't quite cut it for Goran Torbakov.

01:17He's expecting us to live with headphones in our own place 24 hours a day.

01:22They're not brand new, they're refurbished.

01:24The other proposed solution, a buyback scheme.

01:27We've had a voluntary purchase scheme in place for those residents who purchased prior to

01:322022.

01:33But moving or selling isn't an option for everyone.

01:36There is nothing voluntary about it, it's a forced buyback.

01:39Just throwing money at it, like that at us, is just a slap in the face.

01:43The Minister for Transport Infrastructure was philosophical in the face of anger.

01:48As we've seen time and time again, the pain is always worth it in the end and we'll work

01:53closely with the impacted residents going forward.

01:56And there's still a way to go, with 60 level crossings across the city still to be removed

02:01under the government's plan.

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