Donna Southern feels like she’s been living in a suburb “on steroids” – but with a main road that’s on life support.
When she first moved to Rockbank 11 years ago, it was then considered a small town, home to just over 1000 people between metropolitan Melbourne and Melton.
Rockback resident Donna Southern started the Leakes Needs Lights campaign.Credit: Simon Schluter
Today, it is the heart of the country’s fastest growing region. The most recent available population data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics shows that the area spanning from Rockbank to Mount Cottrell grew by 4300 people in 2023 to 27,259 – a bigger jump than any other region in the country.
But Southern says, like in much of Melbourne’s outer west, infrastructure has not kept pace with rampant greenfield housing development.
After years of community frustration, she started a campaign named Leakes Needs Lights to call for urgent upgrades to Leakes Road, the thoroughfare Rockbank is centred on and which is used to connect to neighbouring housing estates and the Western Highway.
Southern said the single-lane road, historically an agricultural route between farming settlements, was no longer fit for purpose.
She said locals faced extreme congestion and witnessed frequent road accidents near where Leakes Road intersects with the highway and Rockbank train station. Train commuters are forced to play chicken when crossing the road to get to and from the station.
Modernising Leakes Road is central to a Rockbank precinct structure plan approved by former planning minister Richard Wynne in 2016 and is expected to occur as part of an upgrade to the Western Freeway.
However the state government has not yet committed to the project, which remains in planning stages after its business case was finished in December.
A report released on Tuesday by Infrastructure Victoria warned that the Western Freeway will be over-capacity in the next five to six years.
Southern said the community could not keep waiting and called for traffic lights and pedestrian crossings to be urgently installed to help manage congestion and keep people safe.
Department of Transport and Planning data shows there were 29 crashes along Leakes Road between the Western Freeway interchange and Westcott Parade. Department data only includes incidents recorded by Victoria Police.
“I’m not exaggerating, there are daily accidents,” Southern said. “It’s just horrendous. I can’t really put it into words. Everyone is really fed up.
“My son is on his learner’s permit and I’m white-knuckled when I take him out in the car.”
Melton Council wrote to the state government twice late last year asking for traffic lights to be prioritised and passed a motion warning that Leakes Road had become an accident hotspot and immediate action was needed.
“We witnessed a major collision occur at this intersection before our very eyes,” councillor Phillip Zada told the chamber in December. “This issue can no longer be ignored.”
A letter from Roads Minister Melissa Horne, sent in January to Melton Council, said planning work for a possible upgrade to the Western Freeway was ongoing but temporary traffic lights were not an option because these could not connect to the broader traffic light control system.
Rockbank resident Melody Williams said she was in four car accidents on Leakes Road within a 10-month period in 2023 and believes she could have been killed in two of them.
Today, she avoids using the road as much as possible by driving alternate, indirect routes.
“Every day that I drive on Leakes Road, I have several near misses,” Williams said.
“It is always frightening to drive along it and there is too much traffic travelling in the morning for anyone to exit the roads branching off safely and quickly.”
Labor MP Luba Grigorovitch, the local state member for Kororoit, tabled a petition with more than 2000 signatures in the lower house in February to call for interim measures at Leakes Road, including traffic lights and better lane markings or signage.
“These intersections have become notorious for bottle-necking traffic, leading to unsafe driving behaviour, including dangerous manoeuvres by frustrated drivers,” Grigorovitch said.
“With the rapid population growth and the increasing demand on our roadways, it is clear that now is the time to act.”
Melton Council mayor Steve Abboushi said residents regularly complained about Leakes Road in Rockbank. A record twenty-four public questions were received for last month’s council meeting.
Council modelling finds the road carries about 14,500 vehicles each day, with a predicted increase to more than 22,700 daily vehicles by 2031.
The population of Rockbank and the immediately surrounding new suburbs of Aintree, Thornhill Park and Fieldstone is expected to almost triple by 2046.
“Significant population growth ... has resulted in increased congestion and safety concerns,” Abboushi said.
The council is asking the state and federal governments to commit to much-needed road upgrades, with hopes that a slice of $1.2 billion of federal money reserved for a Victorian roads blitz will go towards the Western Highway project.
A spokesman for Roads Minister Horne said the state and federal governments contributed $20 million to complete the business case for the Western Freeway upgrade between Melton and Caroline Springs.
“Planning work is under way for a potential upgrade of the [freeway],” he said.
Abboushi said Melton Council was exploring the possibility of safety works at the Westcott Parade section of Leakes Road, which falls under local government responsibility.
The Morning Edition newsletter is our guide to the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up here.