The state Cabinet has approved two options for expanded container facilities at Fremantle Ports Outer Harbour, and has passed them on for planning and environmental approval, Planning and Infrastructure Minister Alannah MacTiernan has announced.
The state Cabinet has approved two options for expanded container facilities at Fremantle Ports Outer Harbour, and has passed them on for planning and environmental approval, Planning and Infrastructure Minister Alannah MacTiernan has announced.
The full text of a Ministerial announcement is pasted below
Two options for Fremantle Ports' new outer harbour container facilities at Kwinana have been approved to proceed for planning and environmental approval.
Planning and Infrastructure Minister Alannah MacTiernan said additional berths would be needed to handle the overflow container trade when Fremantle's Inner Harbour reached optimal capacity.
"We are a trading state and without adequate port capacity our economy will not be sustainable," Ms MacTiernan said.
Ms MacTiernan said Cabinet had selected two options to go forward into the statutory approvals process. These were:
- an island design about one kilometre offshore and linked by an open spanned bridge to an extension of Rowley Road, north of the Alcoa refinery; and
- a partially land-backed facility located just south of Alcoa that would include reclamation of the foreshore and an island component with a freight link via Anketell Road
The Minister said both options were smaller than those previously proposed, with a final annual capacity of 1.4 million containers, compared with 2.1 million and each was estimated to cost $1.3billion, including new road and rail links.
"This is a project of immense economic importance to Western Australia, ensuring that our trade needs continue to be met," Ms MacTiernan said.
"It will also involve hundreds of jobs and increase local employment, both in the construction phases and when operational.
"Fremantle Ports' container trade has grown almost 10 per cent annually on average since the early 1990s and the average size of container ships has increased by about 65 per cent over the past decade."
Kwinana was selected as the location for overflow container and general cargo berths following more than 50 technical and planning studies over two decades.
The new facilities needed to be on the metropolitan coast because 90 per cent of the State's container trade travelled within 50 kilometres of Fremantle
"The selected options will now be subject to very detailed environmental, planning and economic studies in a full statutory planning and environmental approvals process to decide which will provide the best outcomes," Ms MacTiernan said.
"We anticipate that the statutory approvals phase will take about two years after which one of the options will be chosen.
"Community consultation, which has been underway since 2003, will continue to be an important part of these approvals processes."
Ms MacTiernan said that the State Government was committed to Fremantle Inner Harbour's continued operation as a working port.
"Both the Inner Harbour operations and the new container port facilities at Kwinana will be needed by 2015 when Fremantle is expected to reach its optimal capacity," she said.
"It is likely that, as with the Inner Harbour in Fremantle, the new container port facility will be a mix of public and private investment."
Fremantle Ports and the Department for Planning and Infrastructure are jointly managing the Fremantle Ports Outer Harbour Project.
