Melbourne’s western growth corridor is bearing the brunt of Victoria’s population growth with the number of people calling Melton and Wyndham home almost doubling in the past decade.
New population data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics reveals Melton’s population rose by 92 per cent between June 2003 and June last year, from 63,837 to 122,909.
Wyndham’s population rose 98 per cent – from 95,776 in 2003 to 189,618 last year.
Moorabool’s population increased 20 per cent over the same period to 30,320.
RMIT planning professor Michael Buxton said Melton and Wyndham needed improved infrastructure and increased job opportunities if they were to continue growing at such a rapid rate.
‘‘Governments should not be locating people in outer urban areas that they can’t service,” he said.
The bureau said Melbourne’s greenfield developments were mainly occurring in the outer western and northern suburbs, accounting for most of Melton and Wyndham’s growth.
The fastest-growing suburbs in the western growth corridor included Truganina
(11 per cent), Melton South (9.5 per cent) and Wyndham Vale (9.3 per cent).
Release of the bureau data follows revelations by the state government earlier this year that the western growth corridor has enough vacant land to accommodate more than 176,000 new houses.
As reported by the Weekly, a government study stated 82,844 of those lots were in Melton, with the remaining 93,861 in Wyndham.
Melton council’s planning services manager, Bob Baggio, said new housing growth was expected to remain high in the next five years.
In 2012-13, Melton had the highest number of new houses built in growth areas – 2688 of them.
Melton Residents Association president Peter Rowan said more had to be done to help the outer-west deal with the population burden. “Services and infrastructure haven’t kept up,” he said.
