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.