Veteran Mosman councillor running for North Shore on a pro-tunnel agenda

By Grahame Lynch

Long-term Mosman councillor Simon Menzies is throwing his hat into the ring for the March 25 state election of North Shore as an independent candidate with an unabashedly pro-road tunnels agenda.

Menzies told the North Sydney Sun: “I am a long standing Mosman councillor and a strong advocate of the Beaches Link tunnel which has been promised for many years. Now they have reneged and stopped the project even though they are still digging up the Warringah Expressway for it. I am running out of patience at yet another letdown and a broken promise.”

Menzies said the Beaches Link Tunnel, planned to connect Cammeray and Seaforth under Middle Harbour, would alleviate the heavy traffic on Military Road through Neutral Bay, Cremorne and Mosman.

“It can take 3 phases or more just to get through one set of lights at the moment. Military Road is turning into

Parramatta Rd when it should be a splendid boulevard. We need to take a long term view, after all, the bureaucracy has long deemed this necessary.”

“I am running because I am not going to die wondering,” he said. “Enough is enough, I am running for parliament.”

The state government was proceeding with the Beaches Link tunnel until last year when it was placed on an indefinite hold because of supply constraints caused by the likes of labour shortages in the construction sector. These are judged to make projects with longer investment returns uneconomic. Nevertheless, current upgrades to the Warringah Freeway are being built with eventual off-ramps to the potential Beaches Link in place.

Menzies has been a Mosman councillor for 20 years, for 5 of which he has been deputy mayor. He has also been a long-standing chair of the council traffic committee. He works in occupational health and safety in the construction sector.

Menzies links a failure to build the tunnel to a general atmosphere of unfettered new developments, and especially elevated housing targets, without the infrastructure to support them.

He is aware of the criticisms of the tunnels in the western half of the electorate and neighbouring Willoughby, where roadworks and tree removal have been elevated to a major political issue by North Sydney councillors.

“I understand those who oppose the tunnel because of the personal inconvenience to them, but they are big NIMBYs. Sydney needs to be a global city and we need to get from point A to point B without gridlock. It’s a horrendous nightmare currently,” he said.

Menzies says he is far from an one cause candidate and wants to prioritise other issues such the lack of facilities such as changing rooms for women’s sport in the area’s legacy sporting facilities. He also wants to make a more dog-friendly society.

He said he belonged to the Liberals for 18 months a decade ago “but it wasn’t for me.”

Asked to describe his personal politics, he said: “I am a genuine independent.”

“Not teal, not woke. Not conservative.”

Proposed development at 88 Walker St