Planning for continued growth in the South East corner of our state is one of the biggest tasks facing the State Government. In 2005 the government released its 20 year plan for future development in the state. This document spelled out just where development should and shouldn’t go and was even good enough to win a national Planning Institute of Australia award.
Back then, the predictions were for a population growth of some 250,000 people by 2026. The latest estimates blow this out completely to something more like 600,000! We’re already struggling to keep up with infrastructure demands for our current population particularly water, roads and public transport so how will we cater for this massive increase?
In an ideal world the fast tracking of new land to ease housing demand would be the perfect solution but what about infrastructure? How are we going to cater for all these new suburbs and hundreds of extra cars on our already congested roads? Have we considered availability of public transport into these areas?
This latest announcement is another tell tale sign of a government that is rapidly losing the battle in providing neccesary infrastructure and planning to sustain the growth this state continues to experience. Without good decision making now, the future will not be pretty.
