Booming regional cities like Ballarat and Bendigo pulling people away from small towns

VICTORIA’S regional cities, like Ballarat and Bendigo, are sucking the population out of smaller towns on their borders, sparking concern that Victoria’s growing regional cities could hurt smaller country neighbourhoods.

VICTORIA’S regional cities are sucking the population out of smaller towns that neighbour their borders.

Population data shows that Ballarat and Bendigo pulled more residents from neighbouring local government areas than from Melbourne between 2011 and 2016.

The data, from population experts .id, has sparked concern that Victoria’s growing regional cities could hurt smaller towns and themselves come under pressure as their population booms.

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Ballarat sucked almost 1500 people from the municipalities with which it shares a boundary, most notably from Moorabool and Hepburn.

It attracted just 938 residents from metropolitan areas over the same five years.

Bendigo absorbed 1173 residents from four surrounding LGAs, and just 1000 from Melbourne.

Demographer Bernard Salt said the “sponge city effect” meant smaller towns weren’t as “vital or vibrant” as they were generations ago.

“The population is shuffling,” he said.

“That has an impact on the towns because they’ll struggle to put together a football team, netball team or club.

“The level of commercial activity is also diminished. If you drive through these towns there is also often vacant shops in the main street.”

The population of Ballarat and Bendigo is predicted to double to about 200,000 by 2050, with Geelong to jump from 233,000 to 400,000 residents.

Mr Salt said those cities were already experiencing similar growing pains to Melbourne’s outer suburbs.

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A Balance Victoria report warned that the three regional cities do not have room to grow behind the 2050 predictions, given they are surrounded by agricultural land and reserves.

Report co-author, former deputy premier Pat McNamara, said up to half of Melbourne’s population growth needed to be pushed out into regional Victoria — both to help the city cope and refresh country areas.

But he said new regional centres needed to be built, otherwise Bendigo, Ballarat and Geelong would suffer.

“I expect people will say ‘I came to Ballarat or Bendigo when it was a liveable city of 100,000, I don’t want it to turn into 500,000,” he said.

“We need to start planning new centres in greenfield sites because they know the population targets, they know what they are getting and we build it liveable.”

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@moniquehore