Received the following letter last Friday from VicRoads as a result of my contact with the Ombudsman.

What a load of rubbish. It is totally unacceptable and I will be contacting the Ombudsman again and asking them to follow up with the following questions/observations

1. What is taking VicRoads so long to release the measurements? Have they got something to hide? And why do they quote numbers in the letter when they say the report has not been finalised?
2. The whole of our complaint is that noise levels increased as a result of the work they did. So it does not matter what the noise levels are now because we want to see them before and after to check that they have in fact increased.
3. Speaking with other residents, they have no recollection of any response by VicRoads regarding the letter of complaint I organised and sent to VicRoads last year.
4. I think that contacting David Smith is a waste of time as he, in the past, has just told me how wonderful VicRoads is and the work was a great success. We still want answers!
5. In particular, I want them to categorically state that at no time does the noise level exceed 68 decibels in the vicinity of my property of of Basil St.

On another matter, I have been annoying Michael O'Brien's office to try and get an apology for the the letter he sent me dated 22nd March 2013. Still no success!

Sent the following letter to the Victorian Ombudsman today

I am writing on behalf of local residents about work that VicRoads undertook from May to October 2012 to upgrade the Monash freeway sound barriers in East Malvern.  This upgrade was ineffectual and only resulted in an increase in the noise from the freeway to the point where the noise now is intolerable.  In order to get the situation rectified I have
·      Contacted VicRoads on numerous occasions to complain with no result.  Contact made on  20-10 -2012 (Ref# 500502540) and 24-10-2012 (Ref# 500503666).
·      Organised a petition with local residents to express our displeasure with the upgrade work, see Attachment A.  Between the 14th of November and 1st December I sent a total of 24 of the letters to the CEO of VicRoads, Gary Liddle.  Copies of these signed letters are available on request.  No response to the residents has yet been received.
·      Spoken to the Project Manager, David Smith, on a number of occasions and met with him once to no effect.

As a result of my actions I have received two letters from VicRoads dated 3-12 -2012 and 21-12-2012, see attachments B and C.  I found the letter of 5-12-2012 particularly offensive as it implied in the third paragraph that we residents here near the freeway are second class citizens and can be used for VicRoads experiments.  The letter of 21-12-2012 promises that the test results will be  available in late January 2013 – we still have not seen them.

Apart from the increase in noise from the freeway other areas of concert that we have are
·      Removal of vegetation with subsequent long lead time to replace
·      Substandard workmanship including gaps in the barriers which still exist despite assurances they would be fixed (see attachment B).
·      Carelessness by the contractors during the construction work in leaving barriers down overnight resulting in increased noise and allowing people and pets to wander onto the freeway.
·      Lack of consultation with residents.

I have followed many other avenues (which I understand to be outside your jurisdiction) to try and get the noise problem resolved.  A full outline of the actions I have taken is detailed in a blog I have set up at freewaynoise.blogspot.com.au.

What we, the residents, are trying to achieve as matters for urgent attention by VicRoads are threefold
1.     Reduction of the intrusive and disturbing noise caused by the work that VicRoads undertook last year
2.     Acknowledgement to all the residents who signed the letter to Gary Liddle at VicRoads of their concerns and the steps being taken to address them, and
3.     Publishing of the noise test results as promised in Attachment C.

Other residents have also complained to VicRoads with no success.

We have been constantly frustrated by VicRoads inactivity to address our concerns and hope that you can assist in our attempt to improve the situation.

We look forward to you assistance.

Yours sincerely

Chris Babarczy

Hopefully some action will com of this.

The following article appeared in the Stonnington Leader on the 16th of April

Very disappointing. It does not get across our displeasure with the whole exercise. In fact it just accepts the explanations given by VicRoads and Michael O'Brien without question.

It seems as though everyone just kowtows to VicRoads and totally ignores the concerns of the residents. My next port of call is to try and interest the Ombudsman and hope that they will look at the issue with more sympathy/understanding than any of VicRoads, Michael O'Brien or the Leader newspaper have done so far. We, the residents, know the noise is worse now than before and yet no one listens!

From the actions (non-actions?) so far of VicRoads it would seem from my suspicious mind that they know they have made a mistake with the new barriers and are now trying to ignore us the residents and hope we will go away. How can we go about getting answers to the questions I posted on 29th March? How can we get some sort of action from them?

As for Michael O'Brien, he has been probably the most disappointing because he has appeared to not care and again how can we get answers from him. His job is, I would have thought, to listen to and try and help his constituents - but he has not. Questions are posted on 29th March.

Photographer from the Stonnington Leader came around today and took photos of a number of residents next to the sound barrier at the corner of Winton Rd and Thornbury Cres.  My thanks to those residents who turned up and were willing to have their photos taken. I can only hope that when the article appears in the local paper it will pressure VicRoads to take some action and improve the noise.

With the receipt of the letter from Michael O'Brien this week it is finally clear that VicRoads do not care about the residents they have affected with their incompetence and are totally ignoring us. Likewise for Michael O'Brien, who while he is supposed to represent the local residents and act on our behalf, is seems he is only a mouthpiece for VicRoads and puts them ahead of the residents. Perhaps he is trying to cover mistakes made.Therefore, I intend to bring this matter to the attention of the press and hope that the following questions can be answered along with lessening of the noise from the freeway.

Questions for VicRoads:

1. Why was so much money spent on the useless noise barriers and now they are refusing to listen to the residents who tell them the situation is worse?
2. Why was foliage removed and not replaced?
3. Why did they not ask for feedback from the residents?
4. Why have they dismissed or ignored resident feedback when given?
5. Why did they allow shoddy workmanship on the upgraded barriers? For example, existing barriers left dismantled overnight which increased noise and allowed pets to wander onto the freeway. Also, at the end of the work large gaps remained at the bottom of the barriers and in the actual barriers.
6. Why have the test results not been published as promised on the letter of 21st December?
7. How can their testing be relied upon when one lady in Thornbury Cres was told that unfortunately no before testing was done?
8. Why was testing not done during the most noisy periods?
9. Why has Garry Liddle not bothered to respond to the residents concerns? 
10. Why, in the letter received on the 5th of December, did they  imply that the local residents were to be treated as 2nd class citizens and used as guinea pigs for VicRoads testing?
11. Most importantly of all, why are they saying that the noise levels have improved and they are ignoring the residents who say that no improvement has been made and the situation has got worse?

Questions for Michael O'Brien:

1. Why has he not responded to the concerns I raised in emails to him on the 6th of February and 3rd of March?
2. Did he raise these concerns with VicRoads?
3. Why did he include in his letter of 22nd March the phrase "trust that the work of VicRoads has helped achieve a satisfactory outcome for your neighbourhood"? This is plainly insulting to us who are totally dissatisfied and suggests he does not appreciate our situation and is ignoring our concerns.

Finally received the following letter from Michael O'Brien. It is not what I expected, in fact it is totally disappointing and the last sentence is if nothing but downright insulting. How could VicRoads have helped to achieve a satisfactory outcome when they have caused the problem with their inept upgrade in the first place and have done nothing to help!

This letter just takes the side of VicRoads and does not address the concerns of the residents.

Where are the results of the noise testing? Why have they not been sent to us as promised in the letter of 21st December?

He also attached the following letter from Terry Mulder the minister responsible. More weasel words!

Have received no response from Michael O'Brien to my email sent to him on 3rd March. I can only conclude that he is not interested in helping us.