Thursday, 12 May 2022

Cairnlea development

Dr CUMMING (Western Metropolitan) (18:18): (1917) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Planning in the other place, and the action that I seek is for the minister to ensure that the concerns of the Brimbank council and local residents are taken into account and to ensure their safety during any development at the Cairnlea site. Residents and Brimbank council have expressed concerns over the development of the 41-hectare site on Ballarat Road for a new residential development. Local residents hold serious concerns over the rehabilitation of the site, which used to be the Albion Explosives Factory.

The minister was given planning control over the site on the request of Development Victoria, removing the council as the responsible planning authority. Council is concerned, as this may create a burden for the council and the community in the future if issues are not addressed correctly. They have also raised concerns about the density of the proposed development, the lack of trees at the site, the lack of adequate public transport and the management of contaminated soil and the contamination of the site as a whole. A number of the proposed community facilities have not been fully funded, there are no open spaces and the roads do not meet the council’s standards.

This is yet another example of this government pushing aside local council and local government in order to push through substandard developments. It is nothing more than a desperate attempt to make money and to try and disguise it by actually telling us that it is making it into affordable and social housing. Let us be honest: this is substandard housing and a substandard development, just the same as they are doing in Braybrook, overdeveloping an area that has hardly any public transport and again pushing our local councils aside in the process. People in the west deserve better than this. They deserve to have the same infrastructure, the same green spaces and the same access to public transport as anywhere else in Melbourne. It is not good enough to have a substandard development here in the west. We deserve all the bells and whistles. We deserve all of the amenity.