By XAVIER SMERDON
WYNDHAM’S booming population is continuing to bite with the council’s Director of Advocacy revealing that the municipality needs 2.5 to three kilometres of arterial road duplications every year until the growth slows down.
Eighteen months after he took the position of Wyndham Council’s first ever Director of Advocacy, Bill Forrest told Star last week that the municipality was still struggling with the growth in population.
“The growth has not stopped. It is unrelenting; there is no rest for the wicked,” Mr Forrest said.
At next week’s council meeting a report highlighting the serious issues surrounding the lack of management of urban growth will be tabled after councillor Shane Bourke raised it as a notice of motion in May this year.
The report reveals just how serious the impact growth is having on Wyndham.
“We’ve done some of the calculations and we’re needing two-and-a-half to three kilometres of arterial road duplications to keep up with the current growth,” Mr Forrest said.
“There is an end to the growth and the forecast end is 2040.
“The infrastructure backlog we’ve got here, we’re not managing it at eight or nine per cent per annum. Down at three or four per cent we’ve got a chance of managing it.”
Mr Forrest said both the State and Federal Governments had an obligation to provide for Wyndham.
“Most of our issues are with the relationship with the State Government. Having said that, there is a problem that a significant part of the issue is to do with not having enough money to deal with infrastructure problems,” he said.
“Commonwealth Revenues have dried up. We’ve had our direct commonwealth funding in 2008 dollars, so this is grants commission funding to the council, has dropped from$60 a head to $40 in real terms since 2008, per head of population.”
Mr Forrest said he believed there was an end to Wyndham’s growing pains.
“I do think there is a bit more sitting up and taking notice about the problems in Wyndham, particularly by the State Government,” he said.
“One of the lights at the end of the tunnel is what is happening to rail transport planning. If you draw a three km radius around every existing and proposed train station along the regional rail network and the suburban rail network… apart from Point Cook, which is a problem, everywhere else is within three kilometres of a railway station.”
