High Street, Melton, could be reduced to one lane in each direction under a council plan to revitalise the town centre.
Melton councillors adopted the Melton Town Centre Revitalisation Plan, which provides a vision for the future of the precinct, during a meeting on Monday, April 22.
Under the plan, council will seek to reimagine High Street as the heart of the town centre, strengthen McKenzie Street’s role as a community spine, create an active public realm along Toolern Creek, incentivise small business to activate the public realm and develop key strategic sites.
It also wants to support diverse housing options in the town centre, support community health and wellbeing, improve safety, make it easier for people to use public transport and develop the town centre sustainably.
In a bid to re-imagine High Street as the heart of the town centre, the plan recommends council “redistribute space allocated to the carriageway” resulting in landscaping, public space, cycling movements, and in some cases, more car parking.
“This could be achieved by reducing High Street from two lanes in either direction to one lane in either direction,” the plan stated.
Cr Bob Turner said he didn’t see the advantage of reducing High Street to one lane in each direction and could not support the proposal.
“Traffic is quite busy now, if we reduce it to one lane each way, it will be worse. Leave it as four lanes,” he said.
“I just can’t support a single lane each way on our High Street.”
However, Cr Sophie Ramsey said she liked that the report included a “spine of roads” which would be able to “take traffic away from High Street”.
Cr Lara Carli said the plan would revitalise the town centre.
“It is no secret the town centre has been struggling to decline with increased competition from nearby shopping centres and we want to help it reach its full potential,” she said.
“This plan will help us develop new opportunities and advocate to the state government, as well as the private sector, for future investment.
“We want to see a thriving town centre.”
