Lakelands owners ‘disappointed’, ‘disillusioned’ over train station promise

Mr Petricevich, however, lives only a five-minute walk away from where the Lakelands train station was meant to be built.

He was one of the first residents to buy a block in Lakelands, with the promise of new housing developments, parks, shops, schools and a train station.

More than a decade later, the suburb has doubled in size but the station is yet to be built.

“The area is only getting bigger and bigger, it’s growing all the time with proposed high schools and the new shopping centre opening in June,” he said.

“You would think the train station would be the first thing here, now we are getting the shopping centre and still no train.

“I think there’s a lot of disappointed people here, when it didn’t happen after buying the blocks saying it was going to be there.”

Mr Petricevich said he feels disappointed, since they purchased the property to be within walking distance from the train station.

The maps and diagrams they were given at the start all show the proposed site for the train station, and there were big signs around the suburb announcing the project.

“I think we really need one in Lakelands, people have been pushing for it but the government just keeps saying ‘no, no’,” he said.

“I think part of the reason was probably funding why they didn’t do it, but I mean it only has to be somewhere to park and catch a train, it doesn’t have to be a posh thing.”

He believes the proposed train station would service not only the Lakelands community but also residents in the fast-growing suburbs of Golden Bay, Madora Bay and Singleton. 

“I just hope it goes ahead,” he said.

Like Mr Petricevich, Halls Head resident Janice Ellis bought a block in Lakelands more than a decade ago to be near the proposed train station.

“We thought we’ll jump in the train instead of driving to Perth,” she said.

But after the plans for the train station didn’t go ahead, she decided to sell the house and move to Halls Head.

“We were disillusioned,” she said.

Like Ms Ellis, Mr Petricevich’s neighbours also moved somewhere else.

Despite the residents’ concerns, Premier Mark McGowan said the government would follow through with their election commitment to build a train station in Karnup, north of Lakelands.

“We did commit to Karnup prior to the election and so that’s something we’d have to look up,” he said.

“We made an election commitment there so to change that it would be something I’d be reluctant to do.”

However, he said building a train station in Lakelands would slow the train line down. 

“You can’t have too many train stations because if you have too many train stations the train becomes too slow,” he said.

“So it’s a balance always.”