The Construction Source Australia

| January 2021 ern Highway has had to service a steady stream of heavy haulage vehicles, creating traffic congestion,noise and safety concerns. This has been an obvious obstacle for tour- ism, Mayor Zannino explains. “If you’re couple driving through with a tourism map, you don’t want a huge road train bearing down on top of you,” he says. “So we’ve been pushing for a new road to be built further to the west, to bypass the Swan Valley. Finally, after many years of lobbying at both a state and federal level, we’ve got them to recognise it’s an important project.” Apart from redirecting the highway around the Swan Valley, the Perth-Darwin National Highway also opens up thousands of hectares of land for major industrial de- velopment. Mayor Zannino expects this will create a significant number of new jobs, par- ticularly for people in Ellenbrook, the City’s second regional centre. Ellenbrookhas devel- oped rapidly in recent years, and has a cur- rent population of about 30,000 people. “All those people have to travel to theCity, or go north or west for jobs,” he explains. “If INVESTMENT POTENTIAL