In a letter to the council, Infrastructure Minister Rene Hidding said he was considering suspending the development application for the Midland Highway upgrade to clarify the council’s position.

In response the council voted to allow the development application to proceed as originally designed at its Monday meeting.

The current proposal will see Illawarra Road, which connects Perth and Longford, turned into a cul-de-sac  on the eastern side.

In March the council asked the state government to maintain the Illawarra Road passageway due to social connections and commercial advantages.

However, at June’s meeting councillors chose not to support an additional single access road into West Perth from Illawarra Road.

An alternate motion for a two-way road was also lost, at a vote of four to four.

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“While I accept that outcome resulted in the motion being lost, it is apparent that, with one councillor absent,  council may well hold a majority preference for a totally different design to the design in our development application currently being assessed by your officers,” Mr Hidding said.

The council also agreed it was open to discussing changes to the date of Australia day but would not support immediate lobbying for change.

All Tasmanian councils in have been asked to decide whether to support the City of Hobart’s motion regarding Australia day at next week’s Local Government Association of Tasmania meeting.

The motion before the meeting is “that LGAT be requested to lobby Tasmania’s 29 councils to consider efforts they could take to lobby the federal government to change the date of recognition of Australia Day.​”

Northern Midland councillors agreed to move an amendment to Hobart’s motion, removing the words change the date and to instead ask LGAT to initiate discussions in relation to the date of Australia Day.

“The very least we can do is help a discussion start that might make a difference,” Cr Mary Knowles said.