Business Armadale president Paul Harrison said the Canning by-election was an opportunity for businesses to raise the need for infrastructure with politicians.
He said the community connect campaign released last week by the cities of Armadale and Cockburn needed to be addressed urgently.
“Upgrading Armadale Road will reduce travel times between us and Cockburn,” he said.
“We don’t just need a link to Perth, we need a link sideways as well.
“I have a hundred staff and some of them travel from Cockburn and a lot of people travel from Armadale to the port because that’s where the jobs are and they’re an industrial strip though there.
“There is major congestion because it goes from dual to single lane and it takes up to half an hour longer.”
Mr Harrison said an upgraded road would lead to better public transport links via rapid buses so commuters didn’t have to go to Cockburn via Perth.
He said it needed to be sorted out sooner rather than later because the Forrestdale business park already had about 1400 people in it but it would eventually have about 14,000 workers.
He said the Armadale area had been neglected for infrastructure.
“We have got no new roads down this way for years and Armadale is one of the fastest growing areas in the country,” he said.
“We have 13 people a day coming to Armadale and if you add in Serpentine Jarrahdale it’s probably 20 a day and actually nothing has happened, no new roads, no new transport we’re just the ‘burbs whereas it is the people in the ‘burbs who really need it.
“Out of those people moving here, some of them want to start a business and they would want viable links to other areas.”
Mr Harrison, who lives in Kelmscott and has a business in the Forrestdale business park said another problem was broadband.
“I call it dial up here at home because it is that terrible in Kelmscott and at work. It is bloody beautiful to live here but the internet is crap,” he said.
“I’ve got a full computerised system at work and it is that bloody slow.”
Mr Harrison said Armadale was a small business-rich area and with infrastructure in place they could make their businesses work.
“There’s no marginal seats here, the money that was spent in those marginal seats in the Gillard government bloody phenomenal.”
(Examiner Newspapers is a sponsor of Business Armadale.)
