Six properties to make way for Suburban Rail Loop train yard at former construction tip site

Six properties in Melbourne’s southeast will be told to make way for a Suburban Rail Loop train stabling yard.

Six properties in Melbourne’s southeast will make way for a Suburban Rail Loop train stabling yard that will also create hundreds of new jobs.

The Andrews Government will today announce its preferred site for the cleaning, maintenance and storage of up to 34 new “hi-tech” trains is a former sand mine and construction waste site on Old Dandenong Road in Heatherton.

Community consultation and planning and environmental approvals will now be undertaken for the open-air site, which will include connections to the underground loop.

Early works for stage one of the mega-project, which will build a 26km rail line between Southland in Cheltenham and Box Hill, are ramping up after $2.2 billion was secured in the state budget.

Six stations will also be built in stage one, to link major universities, jobs hubs, and other rail lines to the orbital loop.

A map showing stage one of the Suburban Rail Loop, which got $2.2 billion in funding through the state budget

Transport Infrastructure Minister Jacinta Allan said the dedicated stabling site was “a critical element of building our world-class Suburban Rail Loop”.

“You simply can’t deliver turn-up-and-go services for passengers without a facility to keep the train fleet in peak condition,” she said.

“Importantly, it’ll also create hundreds of new local jobs for the southeast.”

Several sites between Cheltenham and Clayton were assessed for the stabling, but the Heatherton land – which is not far from Premier Daniel Andrews’s home golf course Kingston Heath – will minimise acquisitions because it is in a green wedge zone.

Critical infrastructure such as quarries, water treatment plants, and waste facilities are allowed in Melbourne’s green wedge zones.

Properties that will be told to make way for the project include one home and five commercial properties, while 220 jobs will be created as part of the plan.

While it is close to another landfill business, no methane gas emissions have been detected and no asbestos has been found.

Transport Infrastructure Minister Jacinta Allan alongside CEO of Rail Projects Victoria Evan Tattersall at the site of the Melbourne Metro Tunnel. Picture: Penny Stephens/NCA NewsWire.

Ms Allan said SRL early works were ramping up.

“With proposed locations identified for six new stations, a site for train stabling and construction companies competing for the first package of works, we’re well on our way to getting Stage One of this project underway,” she said.

Further testing will now take place to identify just how large a footprint the former construction waste facility at the site has underground, while the community will be asked for input.

Applications for six precinct reference groups for each station site – in Cheltenham, Clayton, Monash, Glen Waverley, Burwood and Box Hill – to help co-ordinate feedback.