Cade Lucas
Traffic congestion and infrastructure not keeping pace with population growth have been blamed for Wyndham’s poor performance in the 2023 Australian Liveability Census released last week.
Wyndham was rated the least liveable council area in metropolitan Melbourne according the census which was conducted by planning consultancy company Place Score between March and June this year.
More than 26,000 participants nationwide, including 3000 in Victoria, were asked to rate their neighbourhoods on a range of attributes such as ease of movement, connectivity, access to local amenities, the quality of open space and whether shops and businesses catered for their daily needs.
With each council area allocated a score out of 100, Wyndham’s total of 55-60 was the lowest in Melbourne followed by neighbouring Melton and Brimbank on 60-65.
Responses on the Wyndham Star Weekly Facebook page clearly indicated that transport, traffic congestion and population growth contributed to the area’s low score.
“Infrastructure doesn’t support the growth,” said Susan McBean of Tarneit. “We’ve become too overpopulated. Stop building new housing estates. We need better roads particularly the main access roads in and out and more schools as existing schools are overcrowded. Perhaps if we weren’t such a safe Labor seat things might get done.”
Werribee’s Daiman McIntyre also criticised Labor governments and Werribee MP and state treasurer Tim Pallas for neglecting the area.
“The roads are choked, medical and emergency services are under staffed and under resourced.”
Geelong’s Phil Jefferson said he left Wyndham due to its rapid growth, but that a lack of new infrastructure wasn’t the only problem.
“Also, to a great extent, the current infrastructure is not being maintained to an appropriate standard.”
In a statement, Wyndham mayor Susan McIntyre acknowledged that rapid population growth presented both an opportunity and a challenge for the municipality and sympathised with frustrated residents.
“Wyndham’s residents deserve to have the same access to services and infrastructure as their metropolitan counter parts.”
However, Cr McIntyre said the liveability census didn’t provide a fair comparison.
“Comparing greenfield emerging areas like Wyndham that have had to start from the ground up – planning and developing infrastructure with long established urban areas that have many more years, resources and funding is not an equal or helpful comparison as it is not even playing field.”
Cr McIntyre said there were other ways of measuring liveability, such as the popularity of local events and said existing capital works projects and the recently passed Wyndham 2040 Plan would help ease the problems.
