Established in 1981 as the
proudly serving Melton and Moorabool
10 JANUARY, 2023
12496404-AV22-21
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Star Weekly signed on to support Melton council’s ‘Fix Our Roads’ campaign ahead of the state election. Melton councillor Goran Kesic is pictured at Christies Road, Caroline Springs, which was one of the roads council wanted upgraded. (Damjan Janevski) 299178_04
A year for community YEAR IN REVIEW ... STORIES OF THE YEAR
Melton and Moorabool roared back to life in 2022 after two years of COVID lockdowns. Community events, stage shows, school fetes and music festivals were held across the region for the first time since 2020, as the pandemic slowly began to fade from the headlines. The community ramped up its fight against the proposed Western Transmission Network Project which proposed to build 190-kilometres of overhead powerlines across the region. Locals also backed Melton council is its campaign to have the municipality’s key roads upgraded.
We look back at how 2022 unfolded in Melton and Moorabool. As we welcomed 2022, businesses across Melton and Moorabool were grappling to find ways to deal with staff shortages due to illness and isolation as COVID cases hit and all-time high. But by February and March, the region had turned its attention to protesting a proposed 190-kilometre high-voltage transmission network stretching through Melton and Moorabool amid concerns it would impact farms, Melton aerodrome and a Toolern Vale school, and lead to an increased bushfire risk in the region. Distressed members of the community, including residents, farmers and landowners, took their fight against the Western Victoria Transmission Network Project to the steps of Victorian Parliament on March 8 in a bid to have their concerns heard.
In April, Melton council launched its ‘Fix Our Roads’ campaign. The campaign, identified six major road corridors in need of funding for upgrades, including the Western Highway, Melton Highway, Christies Road, Hopkins Road, the Robinsons Road, Westwood Drive, Calder Park Drive corridor and construction of the Calder Park interchange. The community didn’t have to wait long for the first win of the campaign, with federal Labor pledging $10 million towards the Western Highway upgrade just days after the campaign was launched. Melton council ramped up the campaign closer to the November state election, securing a $900 million funding pledge from the Victorian Liberals and a $10 million pledge for a business case to upgrade the Western Highway from Labor. In May, Melton mums voiced their concerns
about their inability to access maternal and child health nurses in the municipality. Council restricted the service to infants up to four months of age amid nursing shortages post-pandemic. In June, council had to scale back the service even further, restricting appointments to infants up to eight weeks of age. In October, the state government pledged $650 million to upgrade the Melton train line, including a complete rebuild of Melton station, removing four level crossings and upgrading platforms to allow longer trains to run. The pledge was one of many made by Labor and the Liberals ahead of the state election, with the major parties focusing much of their attention on the Melton electorate. But in the end, Labor’s Steve McGhie retained the seat as Labor’s ‘red wall’ in the west stood strong.
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