Palmerston St facelift

Works began last night on the $1.3 million facelift of Palmerston St, Warragul that will create a community square type atmosphere.

A major feature of the works will be conversion of the two way roadway to one way traffic east bound between Victoria and Smith Sts.

The one way traffic will be introduced within the next few weeks following a weekend of works that will transform the street.

Late last year, Baw Baw Shire Council accepted a tender from Mad Cat Constructions to continue its central business district streetscape works.

The final design, developed with extensive consultation with the project reference group and community, aims to create improved safety and accessibility for property owners.

The works are part of a $4.5 million package of works to improve Warragul’s central business district and have already included streetscape works in Smith St and two new roundabouts in Mason St.

The works have been designed to reinvigorate the retail heart of Warragul with a focus on pedestrian friendly designs..

Project manager Trevor Reynolds of Mad Cat Constructions said the focus of works over the next four weeks would be on the underground assets and a new road surface and introduction of one way traffic.

Works underway this week include underground assets with the replacement of water mains, stormwater and drainage pits and power conduits.

Mr Reynolds said a major weekend of works will be when Palmerston St is shut at 1pm on a Saturday, the entire road ripped out between the two roundabouts and a new road surface will be laid.

He said these works will include profiling out the entire road pavement, demolishing the kerb and lowering the western section to improve drainage issues near Link Arcade.

When the road re-opens on the Monday, the new one way movements will be in place.

Baw Baw Shire project engineer Lee Yuill said the works would create more parking in Palmerston St.

He said there had been some misinformation that there would be no parking in the street.

However, he said the works included improving the angles of parking and width of parking, as well as new disabled parking bays.

Mr Yuill said parking would increase with new spaces created at the Smith St end.

An existing heritage-listed Elm tree on the south side of Palmerston St will be retained and incorporated into new landscaping treatments to emphasise its importance.

New, tall clear-trunked street trees will be planted in the widened footpaths to provide a strong vegetated avenue and reinforce the idea of a “green spine.”.