By Violet Li
Former councillors say Casey needs infrastructure, more jobs, and improved communication in the future.
Star News talked with former councillors to look into the future as the City of Casey had its 30th anniversary on Sunday 15 December.
Casey’s longest-serving councillor and the first mayor Wayne Smith said jobs were missing here.
“We don’t have jobs because we don’t have enough industry now. And that was the fault of both previous councils who just didn’t plan well enough,” he said.
“In the end, it was the greed of developers because there was more money in housing than there was in the industry.
“We don’t have too many factories, but factories lead to employment.
“The majority of people in Casey in those days went out of Casey to work. Therefore, we were always under pressure for our roads because, during peak hours in the mornings and at night, everyone was moving to Dandenong or Pakenham.”
Wayne said getting the message out in such a big municipality was difficult.
He exemplified the recent petition against the proposed Hampton Park waste transfer station.
Star News reported last week that community organisation Lynbrook Residents Association had been urging residents to sign a parliamentary petition to request the State Government to stop the construction of the proposed Hampton Park waste transfer station.
“They’ve got more than 1000 signatures but still that’s not enough. A lot of people just don’t know they’ve had a petition,” Wayne said.
“They had a very limited letterbox drop because it was just ordinary people in this community doing it, and they just couldn’t do probably what was needed. But I wonder what was needed.
“How would you get the message out? Because I have no doubt the day that new facility opens, there’s going to be all these people up in arms saying, it should never have been allowed. Why was it allowed?
“And it’s because they didn’t do anything to stop it, but probably because they didn’t know. That really frustrates me, and that’s communication.”
Wayne said Bunjil Place could be further utilised.
“There’s a lot of empty space in Bunjil. There’s room there to grow,” he said.
“There needs to be a restaurant in Bunjil. It is absolutely unbelievable that there is no way other than the cafe where you can go have something to eat and then go see a show or have something afterwards.
“And we need a hotel there. If you come and perform at Bunjil and I talked to the performers at Bunjil. And they said, where do we stay? The nearest decent hotel would be back in Dandenong.”
Former chief executive officer of the City of Berwick and ex-mayor of Casey, Neil Lucas, said the area had a huge need for new infrastructure.
“It will have to continue developing infrastructure and one of the main reasons is the continued growth in the South East areas,” he said.
“Also, there’ll be a need for upgrades in the older areas too.”
