By Danielle Kutchel
Elderly residents of Casey Grange Retirement Village are literally losing sleep over the traffic outside their bedroom windows.
The residents, whose retirement village fronts Evans Road, say they’re unable to sleep at night thanks to the noise of cars, trucks and buses rumbling past outside.
And it’s gotten worse, they say, since the road was opened up to the South Gippsland Highway, with the road now a thoroughfare from one side of Cranbourne to the other.
It’s also a link to the tip on Hallam Road and is well-used by garbage trucks, as well as dirt trucks carting materials to and from nearby development sites.
Then, there are the donuts and burnouts on nearby Duff Street, the noise of which reaches residents in the retirement home.
Now, they’ve had enough – and they’re begging the City of Casey to address the problem.
Resident Sharon Crook said that for four years, she has been asking the council to add trees along the fence line of the retirement village to block some of the traffic noise.
She said she’s been “fobbed off” with multiple excuses over the years: that it’s not tree planting time, that there are services underground that would be impacted by tree planting, that nothing can be planted due to Covid.
Ms Crook said she’s also been told that if trees were planted, they would need to be surrounded by protective barriers in case a car runs off the road and hits them.
Ms Crook and several of her neighbours in the village have installed triple glazing on their windows, but they say it doesn’t drown out the noise or lights entirely.
They had a small reprieve during the Covid curfew last year, but with the easing of restrictions, the noise has returned.
“We can’t sleep through the noise, and the curfew made that obvious,” one resident explained.
Ms Crook said they can’t open their windows and doors either, due to the traffic sound, fumes and dust spreading from nearby worksites.
Other residents expressed concern about the speed of the traffic passing their village.
Despite running past built-up surrounding feeder streets, Evans Road is currently has an 80km/h speed limit – one which residents believe is too high on the four-lane road.
For now, they’re just after a reprieve from the traffic.
“Our thoughts are, at the very least with some street scraping it would help to reduce the noise and dust levels and provide some privacy from the road,” Ms Crook said.
“This is 4 years of pent-up frustration over a lack of action.”
The City of Casey has been contacted for comment.
