Greens candidate for Melbourne Ellen Sandell says that the Greens are only Party that can be trusted to stop the East West toll road and protect parks and open space. Ms Sandell explained that Planning Minister Matthew Guy’s quiet annexing of an extra 10.5 hectares of parks and land to make way for the toll road, the Greens are pushing forward their plan to protect parks and open spaces at Royal Park.
“We’ve finally seen the route of the proposed East West toll road, and it doesn’t look good for Royal Park. Our open space is what makes this city livable, and neither of the old parties are willing to take action to protect It.” said Ms Sandell.
Ms Sandell commented that Matthew Guy’s recent move to cut the requirement for open space from the project agreement shows the Napthine government is exploiting the weakness of Victoria’s laws that fail to protect open space as he rams a toll road through our parks.

The Greens will:
• develop a public open space strategy for metropolitan Melbourne.
• amend the Planning and Environment Act to protect our public green spacesfrom being lost to developments, such as the East-West tollroad, and increase our public green spaces in areas where there are shortages.
• systematically set green space targets and guidelines to ensure no suburb in Melbourne losses its liveability
• provide $5 million in grants to local council to improve the quality of our existing green space.
• amend our planning scheme and planning provisions to ensure community health and wellbeing is a central consideration in developments.