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Tracks for Beveridge’s station

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Emily Waite
Emily Waitehttps://ncreview.com.au/
Emily Waite has been the Editor of the North Central Review since late April, 2024. With a particular focus on delivering community driven stories, Emily has been responsible for implementing the new 'Words of wisdom' segment, and regularly reaches out to residents both young and old to share their stories with the paper. Emily graduated with high distinctions in a Bachelor of Music from JMC Academy in 2022, and graduated with a Graduate Diploma in Writing and Literature from Deakin University in 2023.

Member for Northern Victoria Wendy Lovell has called on Minister for Transport Infrastructure Danny Pearson to commit to the construction of a train station in Beveridge as a matter of urgency.

Though the Inland Rail project will see track laid in the area for the construction of the Beveridge intermodal freight terminal, there are currently no plans to build a public train station.

But with the town’s population expected to grow to almost 74,000 residents by 2041—an increase of over 700 per cent of its current population—Ms Lovell urged Mr Pearson to ensure a station would be built by the end of the decade.

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Currently, residents in Beveridge must travel as far as 10km to access the train network, with the two closest stations located in Donnybrook and Wallan.

However, with each town boasting a population of around 19,000 and 5000 respectively, and both expected to grow to almost 50,000 by 2041, Ms Lovell argued that it would become unfeasible for either station to support the Beveridge community.

“I call on the minister to act now and commit to building a new train station in Beveridge as a matter of urgency,” she said.

“It must become a reality well before the freight terminal is operating.”

Adding further reason for concern, the State Government recently announced that the town had been identified as one of 27 suburbs to undergo a 10-year housing development plan, also known as a Precinct Structure Plan (PSP), and aid in the government’s goal to build an additional 180,000 homes in greenfield areas by 2034.

PSPs are a Victorian Government initiative that provide a framework for planning new and emerging communities. The framework helps to identify potential challenges, and ensure housing is matched with sufficient infrastructure such as transport, schools, and community facilities.

“The State … Government has announced that the Northern Freight Precinct near Beveridge will be one of the first three greenfield sites where new land will be released for housing,” Ms Lovell said.

“But [they haven’t] made any plans to build the necessary transport infrastructure to handle the expected population growth in Beveridge.”

Yet the Lockerbie North PSP, which was first identified in March 2012, already marks out space for a future station.

In the plan, the vision for the precinct states that it will provide ‘a legible neighbourhood design that allows easy access to multiple transport modes and encourages walking, cycling, and utilisation of public transport services to access local and regional destinations,’ and ‘a potential future rail station at Beveridge that will be integrated with the surrounding community and connect Beveridge to key destinations.’

However, rather than noting that the community’s growth would be a trigger for the construction of a station, the plan suggests the opposite, stating: ‘Future growth and expansion of the Local Town Centre may occur to the north and west, which may be triggered by the delivery of the potential future train station.’

While Mr Pearson’s office did not respond to enquiries regarding whether a train station would be built in Beveridge, a Victorian Government spokesperson stated that the government was in the process of adding additional services to the Seymour line—a welcome change since the service’s last schedule update in May 2023.

“We’re continuing to invest in our regional rail network, upgrading every passenger line in the state, with more frequent weekend services on the way for the Seymour line,” they said.

“We’ve added more than 900 services to the V/Line network since coming into government, upgraded stations and carparks, and are continuing to roll out more services and modern VLocity trains for the Seymour Line.”

However, Ms Lovell argued that the additional services would not suffice.

“Extra weekend train services whizzing past Beveridge on their way to Wodonga will do nothing to ease congestion for weekday commuters in Beveridge, Donnybrook, or Wallan,” she said.

“The population of Beveridge will explode in the coming years, and the government must get started now on planning and building a new train station for the town.”

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