Coronavirus: Holiday home rush to beat Melbourne lockdown

Seven thousand extra cars clogged EastLink on Wednesday as Melburnians raced to the Mornington Peninsula ahead of the corona­virus lockdown.

Mornington Peninsula Shire mayor Sam Hearn, at Rye, says it’s ‘a really bad call on all fronts’ for the peninsular to be classified as a metropolitan area. Picture: Aaron Francis

Seven thousand extra cars clogged EastLink on Wednesday as Melburnians raced to the Mornington Peninsula ahead of the corona­virus lockdown.

The Australian has confirmed that Wednesday was EastLink’s busiest day since mid-March, with Mornington Peninsula locals attributing the spike to city-dwellers heading for their holiday homes.

The toll road operator revealed that 52,000 vehicles used the link to access the Mornington Peninsula compared with 45,000 on Wednesday last week.

The metropolitan Melbourne lockdown restrictions, which came into force at midnight Wednesday, prevent travel to a holiday home unless it’s to carry out essential maintenance.

The Mornington Peninsula currently has no active corona­virus cases and locals are angry that an influx of people potentially carrying the virus has travelled to their seaside haven.

Mayor Sam Hearn said he was concerned about whether the boom of people with homes in the area would do more harm healthwise to the community than good to the economy.

He said it would be easier to prevent people using their second homes if the Mornington Peninsula had been classified as regional like Geelong and excused from the lockdown. “On all fronts, we feel it’s a really bad call to include us in that metropolitan,” he said.

“We’ve got the second-highest population of people over 65 in the state. We’re pretty vulnerable [to the virus]. We’ve got to make the case as much as we can — people’s lives are at risk.”

Mr Hearn said the Andrews government still had time to reclassify the local government area as regional and make it harder for people to move between those areas with coronavirus and the peninsula. “We will be welcoming people from the city and everywhere else we can get them, at the end of the year,” he said. “At the right point in time, we will be saying the complete opposite.”

EastLink’s traffic surge was more than just cars heading to the Mornington Peninsula. Figures show 266,000 vehicles used the toll road, compared with 235,000 the previous Wednesday.

Committee for Mornington Peninsula president Shannon Smit said people travelling to the area from Melbourne could put ­locals’ lives at risk and they should adhere to the strict lockdowns.

“Last lockdown, we had people coming to their holiday homes,” she said. “If we [locked down by postcodes], we wouldn’t have that situation.”

 

Ms Smit said she was concerned about the economic consequences of the lockdown and the mental health of the community. “I just keep looking and comparing us to Gippsland and Geelong,” she said. “I’m comparing why when at this stage Geelong has more cases, they are not impacted, they are not locked down and they’re not going to have the same economic consequences.”

The Bay Motel in Safety Beach has recorded 25 cancellations since the lockdown was announced and owner Josie Giorgianni said many of them were from people in regional areas. “It’s really made a huge impact on us,” she said. “I would have expected a lot more bookings for the weekend, with regional areas wanting to come to the peninsula.

“Something has to be done. Something has to be said about this. We don’t have any cases here — why would they close us off?”

Blue Mini cafe owner Tracey Fleming said many businesses on the peninsula would be in a better position financially if they could access the surrounding regions and also services allowed under the looser restrictions.