ENHANCED rail connections, Western Highway duplication and an Ararat bypass have been ranked high among the priorities for Ararat Rural City Council as it endorsed the Central Highlands Regional Transport Strategy 2014.
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The aim of the Central Highlands' regional Councils and VicRoads sponsored project was to list and rank transport related projects in the Central Highlands region to provide solid justification for seeking State and Federal funding.
Council services' manager, planning and development Neil Manning said the strategy is laid out in a simple format giving background on the region and the purpose and approach of the document.
Mr Manning said council was asked to put together a list of projects for consideration and ranking.
"The transport related projects are ranked using a weighted formula that saw regionally important projects move to the top of the list," he said.
"The formula is similar to the formula the G21 Group of councils developed.
"SMEC were engaged to undertake the work of compiling the regional Councils' projects and ranking them.
"The project was overseen and project managed by officers of the Department of Transport."
Ararat Rural City Councillor, Fay Hull said many of the regionally important Priority Projects have the potential to benefit the people of Ararat Rural City and projects directly put forward by Council have been included in the final group of high priority projects.
"I consider this to be an excellent strategy... this is a strategy that's based around the Central Highland's region which Ballarat is the centre of, and we're on the western boundary," she said.
"The fact is that this strategy covers a real area of interest for us, it has a number of things that are of benefit to our community and I have no hesitation in endorsing this strategy."
The Priority Projects for the region (which are in no particular order) are:
* Provision of enhanced rail connections between Melbourne, Ballarat and Ararat, with the extension of suburban services to peri-urban areas
* Western Highway duplication to Stawell, including bypasses for Beaufort and Ararat, upgrade of the highway to freeway standard between Leigh Creek and Woodmans Hill, and the removal of at-grade crossings between Deer Park and Melton
* Development of north-south arterials through Bacchus Marsh, including upgraded connections to the Western Freeway
* Provision of Ballarat Western Link Road stages two and three
* Investigate upgrading of the Western Highway from Ballarat (Ballarat Western Link Road) to the Port of Melbourne for High Productivity Freight Vehicles (Mass)
* Development of the Ballarat Freight Hub
* Enhanced opportunities for rail freight movement through improvements to the Mildura - Geelong railway line
* Development of the Ballarat Airport Emergency Service Hub.