Port ferry dream ‘alive with study’

By Michelle Herbison
STATE Government will include Portarlington in a Port Phillip Bay ferry service study, Planning Minister Matthew Guy has confirmed.
Mr Guy said a $300,000 study to test the viability of a ferry service to Melbourne’s Docklands would draw on previous investigations for Portarlington.
“It’s not difficult to have one attached to the other. We can look at is as an extension to the work that’s been commissioned in the past.”
But Mr Guy said he “wasn’t interested” in a Portarlington service docking at Port Melbourne, which the previous Labor government had investigated.
“Our study is to work with the port to see what we need to get into Docklands.”
Mr Guy said the study would investigate adding Portarlington to a recently announced route that would dock at Werribee South, Point Cook, Altona and Williamstown.
The proposed route would “complement existing transport” and take some pressure off roads and trains, he said.
“All of us in Melbourne, Geelong, the Bellarine and Mornington need to have 21st Century solutions.”
Bellarine MP Lisa Neville last week in parliament urged Mr Guy to “act immediately” to include Portarlington in the study.
“Specifically excluding the Portarlington ferry proposal… is extraordinary and a slap in the face to the local community and the Bellarine Ferry Group which has been involved in a Portarlington ferry proposal for over five years,” she said.
Ms Neville believed the previous government’s study into the viability of a Portarlington-to-Port Melbourne ferry would “most likely be viable”.
Ms Neville said the proposal required detailed information regarding fares, service regularity and required ferry size.
A community survey under the previous government “overwhelmingly” found enough community interest to support further research, she said.
The Independent reported last month that community group Friends of the Bellarine Hills believed Bellarine Ferry Group’s “playing up” of potential for a commuter ferry was frustrating the town’s plans for a harbour upgrade.
Ms Neville said ferry proposals should “run alongside” Portarlington safe harbour plans, which included two ferry berths.
“You’re not going to include a ferry berth if work has been done to show it’s not viable. It’s not holding up the safe harbour because all of that will take a fair bit of time anyway.”