For years, local residents have tried to work constructively with the North East Link Project.

We’ve attended meetings. We’ve written emails. We’ve asked questions. We’ve provided evidence. And we’ve raised genuine concerns about noise, pollution, noise-wall heights, materials and what this massive project will mean for the families, schools and neighbourhoods that will live beside it for decades.

But instead of seeing community protections strengthened as the project progresses, many locals feel we are watching them being progressively watered down.

The noise walls are a perfect example.

Residents were consulted on an Urban Design and Landscape Plan (UDLP) that showed a very different outcome from what we are now being told will be built.

At Belle Vue Primary School, North East Link’s own community consultation material stated that studies had found the noise walls were likely to need to be 8–9 metres high on the Northern fence of the school and 3metres high on Bulleen road to meet the project’s noise standards.

We are now being told that sections of these walls will be only approximately 3 metres high, with some sections along Bulleen Road removed entirely. At the same time, the proposed materials have been downgraded from concrete/acrylic barriers to thin weathered-steel sheet panels.

On the elevated ramps leading towards the North East Link tunnels, residents are now faced with noise walls of approximately 3 metres in critical locations, featuring jarring kaleidoscope-like colours that appear completely out of place against the blue sky and the vegetation and trees promised as part of the project.

That is simply not good enough.

These are not minor design details.

People are frustrated.

People feel they haven’t been listened to.

And many residents feel the goalposts have moved as the project has progressed.

This isn’t about being against the North East Link.

It’s about making sure that if this massive piece of infrastructure is going through our neighbourhoods, it is built properly and the people living beside it receive the protections they were led to expect.

Once these roads, elevated ramps, ventilation structures and noise walls are built, they will be here for generations.

Our children will be living with the consequences.

That is why we are asking our community, our elected representatives and the Victorian Government to support these four reasonable demands:

1. Install air filtration at the southern ventilation structure in Bulleen

The southern ventilation structure sits directly beside Marcellin College and approximately 700 metres from Belle Vue Primary School.

With thousands of children, families and residents living, learning and exercising so close to this infrastructure, we believe every reasonable measure should be taken to minimise exposure to vehicle pollution.

We are calling for air filtration to be installed at the southern ventilation structure rather than relying solely on the dispersion of emissions from a closed 6.5 km tunnel carrying hundreds or thousands of diesel trucks each day into the surrounding atmosphere. The tunnel air is discharged at only two locations, making it a clear concern that pollution levels in this area will be significantly elevated.

When infrastructure of this scale is being built next to schools and established residential communities, health and community protection should come first.

2. Reinstate proper noise-wall heights – particularly around Belle Vue Primary School and the elevated ramps

The noise walls should be reinstated to the level of protection contemplated when the community was originally consulted and based on the project’s Urban Design and Landscape Plan UUDLP) that was signed by the minister in 2023.

North East Link’s own Community Consultation Report stated that studies had found the noise walls required at Belle Vue Primary School were likely to be between 8 and 9 metres high.

The community had actually asked for walls of up to 10 metres to provide better protection for the school.

Yet residents are now faced with sections of noise wall around this area being reduced to approximately 3 metres.

That is a dramatic difference.

We are calling for the noise walls around Belle Vue Primary School to be reinstated to the 8–9 metre range originally identified by the project's own studies and Urban Design and Landscape Plan, subject to the higher protection required by final acoustic modelling.

We are also calling for noise walls along the elevated ramps and approaches into the North East Link tunnels to be a minimum of 5.5 metres high, with a curved design specifically intended to contain and deflect noise within the ramp corridor, rather than the approximately 3-metre walls currently proposed at critical locations.

There is a very practical reason for this.

Large diesel trucks can have vertical exhaust stacks reaching approximately 5–5.5 metres from road level.

If the source of engine and exhaust noise sits at or above the top of a noise barrier, residents are entitled to ask:

How is a 3-4 metre wall supposed to properly protect the community?

These elevated ramps place heavy vehicles above the surrounding landscape already. Reducing the walls further only increases concern about noise travelling into nearby homes, schools and parklands.

The walls need to protect the community in the real world — not simply satisfy a minimum design requirement on paper.

3. Restore the original noise-wall colour and visual design

The community is also asking for the appearance of the noise walls to be reconsidered.

Instead of creating a kaleidoscope of different colours along the corridor, we want the design returned to the more restrained sky blue/green colour treatment reflected in the original UDLP design approach presented to the community.

These walls will be enormous permanent structures running through established residential neighbourhoods and parklands.

Their appearance matters.

The colour palette should help the walls blend into the sky, vegetation and surrounding landscape rather than turn kilometres of major road infrastructure into a patchwork of competing colours.

This is not just about aesthetics.

It is about visual amenity and liveability for residents who will look at these structures every day.

The original design philosophy was presented as integrated, consistent and sympathetic to the surrounding landscape.

That principle should be honoured.

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE ORIGINAL Urban Design and Landscape Plan?

This is the question many locals are now asking.

It formed a major part of how this project was explained to the community.

Residents were encouraged to attend information sessions, examine drawings, provide submissions and participate in consultation on how this enormous project would ultimately look and operate.

What residents understood would be a coordinated, landscape-sensitive design is increasingly looking very different from the outcome originally presented to the community.

This is the issue at the heart of this petition.

If the original UDLP was good enough to show the community when support and consultation were required, why isn't that same standard good enough now that the project is being built?

We understand engineering changes sometimes need to be made.

But there is a big difference between genuine engineering refinement and progressively reducing the protections provided to the people who will live beside this infrastructure.

Our community should not be the place where savings are found.

This is about our homes.

• Our kids.
• Our schools.
• Our air.
• Our sleep.
• Our parklands.

And the future liveability of Bulleen, Balwyn North and surrounding communities.

We have tried raising these issues quietly and respectfully for a long time.

Now we need to raise our voices together.

If you believe the North East Link should deliver proper noise protection, air-quality safeguards, responsible urban design and genuine transparency, please support this petition and share it with your neighbours, friends and family.

We are not asking for special treatment.

We are asking for the protections our community was led to expect and the protection it deserves.