By Michaela Meade
The 30-year plan for Melton and the western region of metropolitan Melbourne is not ambitious enough, according to a council submission about the Western Metro Land Use Framework Plan (WMLUFP).
The WMLUFP is an extension of Plan Melbourne 2017-2050, which is the metropolitan land use and planning strategy for the greater Melbourne area.
In a council report about the submission tabled at a council meeting last week, council officers stated that the WMLUFP was not ambitious enough for a 30-year plan.
“While Melton city council is supportive of a WMLUFP being prepared, it is concerned that the Framework Plan reads more like a 10-year infrastructure plan rather than a 30-year land use framework plan,” the report said.
“It is disappointing to see that most of the infrastructure items identified in the plans are projects that have been committed to in the current budget or have recently been constructed.
“As such the plan fails to detail strategies that will prevent current problems of poor public transport, traffic congestion, poor access to jobs, schools, and community services from getting worse.”
The submission requested the WMLUFP be amended to include “more aspirational and visionary infrastructure projects” for residents of the west in 2050, to better meet their needs.
“Council is concerned that the WMLUFP appears to be taking a business as usual approach to infrastructure provision in the west,” the submission said.
“Council believes there are better ways to plan and deliver infrastructure in the west, which would result in the infrastructure delivery problems experienced in the cities of Brimbank and Wyndham not being replicated in the city of Melton.”
The submission called for an “aligned whole of government” approach to planning that would focus on meeting the needs of the community rather than “deferring costs in the form of social and economic impacts on greenfield communities”.
