Cranbourne East was Australia’s largest growing suburb in the last financial year, according to figures released yesterday by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
The figures, reported in The Age, reflect the continued year-on-year growth in Melbourne’s south east. The availability of affordable housing continues to prove popular with first home buyers and migrants, in particular, and forecasters predict the overall population of the City of Casey to soar to half a million residents by 2041.
Some 88 people per week moved into Cranbourne East between June 2014 and June 2015.
Point Cook was another suburb to experience strong growth, with 36,000 people moving there over the past ten years.
Wolfdene Director Jon Atchison said the rapid growth in the region presented both opportunity and challenges.
“Wolfdene’s had a strong presence in growth areas such as Cranbourne and Point Cook for many years and we have a number of developments commencing in the coming months,” he said.
“The challenge from our point of view is to ensure that developments have effective urban designs that support community engagement and encourage healthy, active lifestyles. Creating plenty of green spaces and both active and passive recreation areas are crucial elements in bringing these communities together.
“These are effectively new suburbs being created with residents coming from wide-ranging backgrounds so it’s essential that there’s the right design, infrastructure and services to go beyond simply building houses to helping create a cultural identity.
“Wolfdene has implemented dedicated community programs at our new estates as a way of bringing people together. Not only does this promote health, wellbeing and connectedness, it also helps address issues such as social isolation.”
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