Melbourne’s western suburbs will be home to more than a million people by 2031 and with almost 40 per cent of them born overseas, the area will be Australia’s most multicultural region.

Wyndham and Melton have overtaken the Gold Coast as Australia’s fastest growing region.

The western suburbs of Melbourne are increasing rapidly and will be home to more than a million people by 2031

With an extra 193 residents a week, Wyndham will reach a population of 359542 by 2031 – up from 209,768 currently. There are 12 babies born in the municipality each day.

By 2036 Melton will house 315,000 people – almost the size of Geelong.

Brimbank will house 200,000 people by 2013, Maribyrnong 156,000 by 2041 and Hobson’s Bay 107,000 by 2036.

According to the latest Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) data, the resident population of Melbourne’s west increased from 611,512 people at the 2006 Census by 28.3 per cent to reach 716,510 people at the 2011 Census.

The residential population growth of 4.3 per cent a year in Melbourne’s west between the 2006 Census and the 2011 Census was almost double Victoria’s population growth rate for the same period.

Melbourne’s west is a region that welcomes people from around the world and is enriched by cultural and linguistic diversity.

For generations, Melbourne’s west has been the first place that hundreds of thousands of immigrants to Australia have called home.

The region has among Australia’s highest rates of overseas born and is the most culturally diverse area in Victoria. People from more than 130 different nations have made their new home in Melbourne’s west.

Wyndham mayor Adele Hegedich said that more than 3000 homes a year were being built, requiring the construction of new roads, public transport infrastructure and schools.

“At the current rate we need a new primary school built each year and a new high school every three years,” Cr Hegedich said.

Added to this will be the creation on Yarraville Gardens, a $2 billion mini-city on the site of the old Bradmill woollen mill. A rezoning of the area will see 1500 dwellings built – a mixture of apartments and townhouses of up to six stories.

Brimbank Council has rezoned 19 hectares of former industrial land for mixed use development and another 9 hectares of commercial land has been rezoned for residential development.

But according to demographer and economist Ian Pringle, it is Melbourne’s west that is offering affordable housing to young families.

“In Melbourne you can still buy high quality housing at an affordable price within 40km of the CBD – that’s something that can’t be said of Sydney,” Mr Pringle said.

New suburbs such as Caroline Springs, Point Cook, Tarneit and Truganina are all located within 30km of the centre of Melbourne.

Typically, in these areas, house and land packages start at the mid $300,000s while comparable offering in Sydney cost more than half a million dollars.

Skye Doyle
AMES Australia Staff Writer