Tuesday, 3 February 2026

 Wendy LOVELL (Northern Victoria) (20:53): (2251) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Transport Infrastructure, and the action that I seek is for the minister to expedite support for a small business owner in my electorate whose business was seriously damaged by a flood of water run-off resulting from works on the Yan Yean Road upgrade stage 2. I recently met with Glenn, who owns a bicycle shop in Doreen. Glenn has a thriving business building, selling and repairing bikes for kids and adults, but Glenn’s business recently took a massive hit. On Sunday 21 December, just days before Christmas, which as we all know is the busiest time of the year for a bike shop, an afternoon of typical rainfall quickly turned into a flood that would ruin his shop. Behind the bike store is a large block of land that slopes downwards towards Glenn’s shop. Rain has never been a problem before, even on days of heavy rainfall, as the land was covered in vegetation which both held and slowed the movement of water. But as part of the works for stage 2 of the Yan Yean Road upgrade, all that vegetation was cleared and the soil graded, resulting in the surface water collecting and moving quickly downhill through channels created by temporary road access.

A week before the incident, when crews were grading the dirt, Glenn spoke to the workers about his concerns regarding water run-off and was assured that there was nothing to worry about as the land had been shaped to guide the water past his shop. But in fact the stormwater gathered and accelerated downhill towards his shop and then overwhelmed a low fence of wooden stakes and debris knitting that was only a foot high. A knee-high wave of muddy water then surged into the back of his property and through the shop, causing extensive damage. Nineteen bikes stored at the rear of the shop, waiting for Christmas collection, were knocked over and covered in mud. Stock and bicycle parts on low-lying shelves that were needed to assemble bikes on order were contaminated. The water ran over the main shop counter, destroying computer equipment, point-of-sale tech and the printer, crucial electrical equipment for assembling and repairing bikes, as well as an MIG and TIG welder, a $6000 electrical lift and a similarly priced computerised brake machine.

The clean-up costs totalled over $7000 and the value of damaged equipment runs into the tens of thousands of dollars. Glenn also lost over $20,000 worth of business in those days before Christmas and instead had to refund thousands of dollars of lay-by orders he could no longer fulfil. Glenn is grateful for the interest shown by his local parliamentary representatives Lauren Kathage, Rob Mitchell and me. We all want a good outcome for Glenn and hope that his business can be restored quickly. Representatives from the Victorian Infrastructure Delivery Authority, which is responsible for the Yan Yean Road stage 2 project, visited Glenn’s shop to see the damage.