WYNDHAM mayor Kim McAliney has delivered a personal plea to Premier John Brumby to fix Wyndham’s transport and health services.
Cr McAliney told Mr Brumby at a Western region bi-annual council forum last Thursday that residents were fed up with a lack of infrastructure and minimal services.
“I told him that residents are no longer prepared to wait. We’re crying out for public housing, we’re short of GPs, we’ve got no public psychiatrists in the City of Wyndham. We have rail problems, access issues getting in and out of the city and major transport issues,” Cr McAliney said.
“At the end of the day I want to make sure that we receive a huge slice (of government funding).”
Cr McAliney’s meeting with the Premier followed his (the Premier’s) announcement that Wyndham was earmarked as one of the six major growth corridors in the state and it would benefit from plans to fast-track the release of nearly 100,000 blocks of land as part of a new urban growth zone.
But Wyndham Council and local advocacy groups have called on the State Government to fast-track transport and infrastructure plans.
Cr McAliney said that last year 34 new estates were up for approval in the Truganina Ward alone. Yet the government was failing to provide matching finance for infrastructure and services.
A boom in new housing developments would also add pressure to existing infrastructure facilities including Werribee’s Mercy Hospital.
From Page 1.
In Wyndham alone, there are about 52,000 blocks of land earmarked for residential and industrial development under the State Government’s original 2030 planning blueprint.
At current growth rates, Wyndham’s population of 116,000 is set to increase to 202,000 in the next 13 years, placing increased pressure on infrastructure, particularly transport networks and water supply.
Wyndham Council chief executive Ian Robins told Star that the implications of fast-tracking new housing developments were serious.
“In terms of this region, the transport challenges are very significant – that’s both public transport and roads,” Mr Robins said. “If this speeds up development it does have some implications.
“For the past three or four years we’ve been saying (to government) growth in Wyndham is substantially outstripping the population projections that you guys had when you developed 2030.”
Mr Robins also warned of additional costs to the council that would flow from rapid urban development. He said the council was currently building at least one community centre annually at a cost of more than $4.5 million.
Cr McAliney used last week’s forum with the Premier to also strongly push the need for funding to fix the congestion problems at the Werribee and Cotterell Streets intersection. “We have a number of priorities and that is one of them,” she said.
Committee for Werribee chairman Peter Hudson said additional infrastructure support – including roads – needed to be addressed. “One of the gripes that we’ve had is about the lack of strategic planning with regard to future development,” he said.
Bob Westwood, of Westwood First National, said: “There’s no doubt there’s going to be more pressure on our roads. We’ve already got a lot of pressure on our road network. This, however, may well hasten the provision of some of those services and enhance our opportunities to improve our services.”
Chief executive of the Urban Development Institute Tony Di Domenico welcomed the government’s plan but also indicated that local infrastructure would also need to be supported.
“There’s no doubt that one of the major problems is infrastructure, not just in Victoria but Australia-wide. There is no reason now for something not to happen. It needs to be addressed, it’s as simple as that,” Mr Di Domenico said.
Under the new urban growth zone announced by Mr Brumby, developers will no longer be required to apply for rezoning on individual blocks of land, leading to faster processes in the granting of planning permits.
Wyndham Council was not consulted before the announcement last week.
