Point Cook: living in a 'Sick Suburb'.

Point Cook is the place we call home. It's a relatively new suburb of Melbourne, approximately twenty five kilometres south west of the City, traditionally the home of the Royal Australian Air Force and set in thousands of acres of open farmland. That's all changed in the last three years, as it's become Australia's fastest growing suburb, fuelled by thousands of immigrants chasing work in the World's Most Livable City, or those simply trying to get out of the choking inner suburbs. It all sounded perfect. There were wide open spaces, large plots of affordable housing and easy freeway access to the city. But Australia's fastest growing and most marketed suburb is now being labelled the country's sickest. Where did it all go wrong?




Let's rewind a little. In 2006, towns such as Point Cook weren't really on the map, nor was any town in western Melbourne for that matter. They were just places passed through and ignored as city folk headed to the Great Ocean Road and its world class surf beaches. Point Cook had just fourteen thousand residents and an air base. There was one main road. There was no town centre, no restaurants, no supermarkets, no public transport, no parks, no schools, no hospitals, and in fact not a great deal of anything.  No one in their right mind wanted to live there.

Until Melbourne ran out of space. Literally. Since 2003, more than fifty thousand people have moved to Melbourne each year, with over six hundred thousand new arrivals in that time. And it's actually increasing, with the last official figures showing eighty thousand new residents landing in 2010. If it carries on growing at similar rates, Melbourne would potentially be bigger than Sydney by 2028. 

Point Cook 2008: when we took this picture, this prefab
sales room was the only building for miles.

Unsurprisingly, the Victorian state government were faced with a huge problem. There simply weren't enough homes to put them in. The inner city and eastern suburbs were already packed to the rafters. The western side of the city was the obvious solution, with its acres upon acres of farmland, and the twenty five kilometre freeway ride to the CBD. Their decision to allow the farmers to sell land to developers made many instant millionaires overnight, and seemed to be the answer to everyone's problems.
Estate agents, builders and land developers had a field day. A release of new residential land on this scale simply hadn't been seen in Victoria before. Typically the marketers stretched the truth as much as they could, master plans would show the CBD being just twenty minutes away from this world of tranquility and space. Developments such as Sanctuary Lakes, Saltwater Coast,  Featherbrook, and Alamanda were all born.  And the public flocked in their thousands.

Twenty minutes to the CBD...

But although the landscape changed rapidly, the fundamental issues in Point Cook didn't. There simply wasn't an infrastructure to cope with the new arrivals, even if the local council had delivered well on the basics, ensuring that a brand new purpose built town centre was completed, and that people could move freely around Point Cook on tree lined boulevards. There weren't enough schools, parks, medical facilities or jobs.

Victoria Police seem to take great delight
in the misfortune of local commuters.
They issue parking tickets like confetti.

Perhaps the biggest issue was, and still is, the lack of local jobs. The schools have arrived, and so have the medics and there are no shortage of facilities in nearby Werribee. But with no jobs in the area, that means thousands upon thousands of workers having to head to the city each morning.  Big problem. There was still only one main single carriageway road to the freeway. They rapidly opened a second entry point on the single carriageway Palmers Road, but built it so hastily that they left it half finished.  They also didn't have a plan to improve public transport. There is no train station in Point Cook, with the nearest one at Laverton right next to the already choking freeway, and with parking for a few thousand, when more than double that use it regularly. The bus system to the station runs so infrequently that it could add thirty minutes to a journey. To make it even worse the council has decided now is the time to complete the bridge at Palmers Road, closing one lane and causing commuter chaos.

Local residents have finally had enough. I think the closing of one lane on Palmers Road was the straw that broke the camel's back. A residents pressure group has been formed, the Point Cook Action Group, and the council is being forced to act, with yet another huge three thousand home proposed development being passionately opposed to. The media are picking up on the issues with special features in the national press and on the prime time news shows. It shouldn't take too long for Premier Julia Gillard to respond, as this is her constituency after all, but she has thus far been remarkably quiet, and for now the suffering goes on.

We remember those glossy marketing brochures with their promises of twenty minutes on the freeway to the CBD; they forgot to add the thirty minutes it takes just to crawl the three kilometres to the freeway or train station.