By Adam Carey and Clay Lucas
The first stage of a little-publicised 100-kilometre ring road orbiting Melbourne’s northern and western fringes is needed within six years, government planners say, to cope with rising population and traffic congestion in booming outer suburbs.
Documents, seen by The Age, show the government was advised during the pandemic that the timeline for completing the $31 billion project’s first stage should be pulled forward by at least five years to 2031.
The Outer Metropolitan Ring is intended to one day stretch in an arc around the city’s west and north, linking the Princes Freeway in Little River to the M80 in Thomastown.
Up to eight lanes wide, with a four-track freight rail line in its median, it would be one of the costliest infrastructure undertakings in Australian history, carving through at least 602 properties on Melbourne’s fringe and reshaping the city’s development trajectory.
The documents detail how the state had already spent $350 million compensating landowners along the corridor, with government planners warning total payouts could exceed $2.7 billion.
And while the corridor has existed on planning maps since 2009, and there is no commitment to delivering it yet in the budget, government correspondence seen by The Age shows a leap forward in its recommended delivery timeline.
New housing in Manor Lakes butts up against the reserve for the future Outer Metropolitan Ring.Credit: Eddie Jim
The documents show the government was urged to complete the first stage — previously expected in the mid-2030s — by 2031. The entire project is expected to be completed by 2046. Planners in the documents cite strong population growth in Melbourne’s north and west as reasons to accelerate building the road.
In a Supreme Court case late last month, which shows the scale of the financial and legal battles potentially associated with the project, a Manor Lakes landowner is suing the state for $31 million in compensation for what he says is lost value after part of his property was reserved for the corridor.
He claimed the move slashed the land’s value and left part of it unable to be developed. The first offer from the Allan government, increasingly indebted and managing blowouts in other mega-projects, was $0.00, court filings show.
The case, brought by Jeffrey Barrett, centres on his 63-hectare tract of land on Melbourne’s western fringe. Title records show Barrett bought two adjoining rural properties 44 years ago for $195,000, and farmed on them as development crept closer.
Landowner Jeffrey Barrett (far right) and his family have sued the government for more than $31 million in compensation.
He then turned developer, and has sold scores of home lots on part of his property. Hundreds more are under construction or in the pipeline as part of a housing development known as Winterset Lodge Estate.
In 2010, 19 hectares — about a third of the Winterset development — were placed under a public acquisition overlay, reserving them for the future transport ring.
In 2020 Barrett applied to Wyndham City Council for a development permit but was refused after the Department of Transport and Planning objected. The land in question, the department argued, was needed for the Outer Metropolitan Ring.
That refusal triggered Barrett’s right to seek compensation under state planning laws.
Valuers he retained assessed the land’s “before” value at $88 million and the “after” value — assuming the road would be built — at just under $57 million.
The initial argument from government lawyers that Barrett was entitled to nothing was based on the assertion his application would have been refused even without the department’s objection. The Department of Jobs, Precincts and Regions also objected, allowing the state to claim the refusal had nothing to do with the looming freeway.
After the case became a drawn-out legal battle, the state revised its position – offering Barrett nearly $19 million in March this year. The sides could not agree, and a five-day trial concluded last month.
A judgment is pending, and Barrett declined to comment while the case is before the court.
During site visits this month, The Age observed the built-up southern fringe of his new estate — scores of homes completed and sold, with hundreds more to follow — while the northern two-thirds of the land remains undeveloped, fenced off and dominated by low grasses.
Planning experts say the outcome of Barrett’s case is likely to shape the state’s approach to compensating hundreds of other affected landowners along the corridor.
The Outer Metropolitan Ring and E6 Transport Corridor – its official name – is pitched as essential for Melbourne’s growth, forming a major orbital route for freight and general traffic, linking the Beveridge Intermodal Freight Terminal to the Princes Freeway and M80 Ring Road and easing pressure on inner-suburban roads and the West Gate Bridge.
In 2021, the state and federal governments allocated $20 million for a business case for the project. The resulting 1529-page document is being kept secret – The Age unsuccessfully sought it via freedom-of-information laws.
The Winterset Lodge sales office in Manor Lakes stands inside the future corridor for the road.Credit: Eddie Jim
But the government documents from 2021 seen by The Age showed the project was expected to return between $1 and $1.90 in wider economic benefits for every dollar spent.
According to the documents, the ring was expected to be built in three stages:
- The 27-kilometre eastern section, or E6, between the M80 Ring Road and the Hume Freeway, forecast to cost about $6 billion.
- The 32-kilometre northern section between the Hume and Western Freeway, expected to cost $10.5 billion.
- The 40-kilometre southern section from the Western Freeway to the Princes Freeway near Werribee, projected at $8.5 billion.
The total estimated cost of $25 billion covers road infrastructure alone. A parallel freight rail line – also planned within the corridor – is expected to cost $5.3 billion to $6 billion.
In some areas, the corridor is up to 1.2 kilometres wide. While some affected land is undeveloped, much of it includes farms, subdivisions and properties poised for development — all subject to complex negotiations.
Government planners, in the documents seen by The Age, said strong population growth — particularly in Hume, Melton and Wyndham – had brought forward the need for the project. Completion of the first stage by 2031 was now considered essential.
The government’s infrastructure adviser has consistently and publicly taken the view that the project will one day be needed, urging the government to continue to protect the corridor and refine plans for it.
Infrastructure Victoria chief executive Jonathan Spear told The Age the case for the Outer Metropolitan Ring was less pressing than other planned projects, such as electrifying rail lines to Melton and Wyndham Vale, but could become important by the 2030s.
“We do still think that the OMR will have an important strategic role for our transport and also our freight network in the future, keeping in mind of course that it’s not just a road, it’s a freight rail corridor as well,” he said.
Infrastructure Victoria’s 2021 to 2051 strategy endorsed the Outer Metropolitan Ring as a project that would “act as the backbone to developing areas in the north and west, ensuring that freight movements around the area are accommodated on high-quality built-for-purpose roads”.
Infrastructure Victoria chief executive Jonathan Spear.
Its analysis found the road’s construction would be crucial to Victoria’s economy as existing freeways will become increasingly congested, making freight transport less efficient and goods more costly.
Melbourne’s urban growth boundary was extended in 2010, the same year the Outer Metropolitan Ring was added to the planning scheme.
Urban planner Eric Keys is sceptical about the purported benefits and said most Melburnians were probably unaware of the project, despite its substantial implications. Though the case for it rests on meeting growing demand on the fringe today, he warned that, once built, the road would lay the groundwork for yet another expansion of Melbourne’s urban boundary.
The corridor’s original announcement under then-premier John Brumby in 2008 was met with concerns about urban sprawl.
“It will trigger the next wave of outer-suburban development,” Keys said. “The government will always say, ‘No, that’s not the plan.’ But once they build the road, the next government will [say], ‘Well, it just makes sense to rezone and change all the land.’”
He said Victorians ought to be suspicious of claims that major road projects are justified because they will solve freight problems.
The $10.2 billion West Gate Tunnel toll road supplanted Labor’s original $500 million proposal to build truck off-ramps from the West Gate Freeway to the Port of Melbourne. The EastLink tollway was initially conceived as a road and rail project, though the rail line was never built.
“These arguments about freight tend to be sort of rhetorical arguments because they’re reasonable arguments, but that then becomes a Trojan horse for the real purpose, which is actually just building a big freeway for cars,” Keys said.
Brimbank councillor Katharine Nikolic and Melton councillor Phillip Zada chair advocacy group LeadWest, which is lobbying for the road’s construction as soon as possible. Credit: Eddie Jim
Melbourne’s outer west is set to be home to 1 million people by 2050, and LeadWest, an alliance of all five western suburbs councils, is lobbying the state and federal governments to commit funding to the road project as soon as possible.
LeadWest chair and Melton councillor Phillip Zada said the project would ease congestion on the Western Ring Road and unlock access to Tullamarine and Avalon airports and to Geelong.
“It’s needed now, especially with the exponential growth we’re having in the west,” Zada said.
“We need to support the growth. It’s easier to build a house than it is to build an OMR; it’s a massive undertaking, but from discussions we’ve had with the state and feds it is not a forgotten project.”
The state government has not announced funding to deliver the project.
An Allan government spokesperson did not answer questions from The Age, but said it was preserving the transport corridor and that compensation settlements are confidential.
The final alignment and land acquisition process are expected to be managed in stages over the project’s two-decade lifespan.
Government planning reports acknowledge the potential for “significant impacts on land use and development” as well as “adverse effects on landscape and visual amenity, biodiversity and Aboriginal cultural heritage sites”.
The Department of Transport and Planning argued in earlier reports that the project is unavoidable if Melbourne is to remain liveable.
For landowners like Barrett, whose Supreme Court challenge has already cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, the question is not whether the road should exist – but who should bear the cost.
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