Huonville is one of the major district centres outside the Greater Hobart area in southern Tasmania. As a growing regional service hub, the Tasmanian and Australian Governments committed to building a link road in Huonville that will reduce congestion and improve safety in Huonville’s town centre. ERA was retained by Burbury consulting to perform community engagement in the local area to identify any public concern and to determine the publics preferred location of the link road.

Feedback was sought using a number of engagement methods including on-site walkouts, static displays at the Huon Valley Community Hub, a Social Pinpoint website, email, and phone engagement. During consultation, the community contributed a range of comments and suggestions regarding the project and general traffic safety in Huonville’s town centre. These included reducing congestion and improving amenity in the town centre, reducing speed limits on residential sections of road and improving pedestrian safety and connectivity using features such as zebra crossings, crossing islands, shared pathways, improved verges and footpath construction.

The community had the opportunity to select their favoured route for the link road from two potential option put forward. The engagement found that one route was favoured and/or acceptable by a large majority of the community (81%).

Construction began in November 2023 and the bypass is expected to open to the public early 2025.