JOHN Flynn doesn’t need official figures to tell him how much the local population and traffic has grown in the seven years he has been in Strong Drive.

More than 3000 people have moved into Hampton Park in that time, and the suburb also sits in a direct path between the Monash Freeway and the high-growth suburb of Lynbrook to the south, where the population has swelled fourfold in the past decade.

“This is a nice area, but it has been shamefully neglected,” Mr Flynn said. “There’s no structure, it’s all haphazard. Hallam Rd should be a four-lane road with all the traffic it’s carrying.

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“The intersection with Warana Drive is ridiculous. You can sit there for three hours waiting for a break in the traffic to turn right. They’ve put a pedestrian crossing further up the road, but if they’d moved it closer to Warana Drive it could have helped pedestrians and drivers as well.”

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His complaint was echoed by Paula Farkis, who has lived in Strong Drive for 11 years.

“The only way you can get on to Hallam Rd from Warana Drive at peak time is if someone pushes the button on the pedestrian crossing up the road,” she said. “Sometimes I think it would be quicker if I got out of my car and walked up and pushed the button myself to stop the traffic.”

She said the intersections of both Warana Drive and Somerville Rd on Hallam Rd needed traffic lights or roundabouts.

“At busy times you’ll wait and wait and then get one or maybe two cars going,” she said. “The traffic is definitely getting worse.”

Mr Flynn said traffic congestion in Hampton Park was symptomatic of what was happening all over Melbourne.

“It’s not just about our lives, it’s about the future,” he said. “They’re building freeways that can’t even cope with today’s traffic. What are they doing about road use in the future? They should be looking at building a tunnel underneath the Monash Freeway. The costs are only going to get higher.”

He said the street also suffered from young drivers in loud cars using it as a raceway.

“They come down here and plant their foot or do burnouts, trying to make as much noise as possible. It’s all a show-off, ‘Look at me’.

“How do you stop it? It’s a lack of driver education, they have no consideration for others  and they don’t know how dangerous it is.

“Some cars would be doing 120km/h down the street and they can easily lose control – one car has hit a tree over the road and a car also ploughed into someone’s front fence.

“But drivers who have killed people while they’re hooning are given only three months’ jail and you can see why they don’t care.”

Rod Badenhop, who also lives in the street, said it needed speed humps. There were several houses in the neighbourhood with groups of  young people who drove cars with loud mufflers and enjoyed spinning their wheels in the street.

Another elderly neighbour said she had lived there for 23 years and felt it was getting rougher because of the number of hoons doing burnouts in the street.

Mr Flynn said the problem was common after dark and as late as 2am, but cars also raced down the road about 7am as people left for work.

“If you had a speed camera on this street, you’d quickly have enough money to build a hospital,” he said.

ROD BADENHOP: Tough fior tenants

AFTER just 12 months in his rented home, Rod Badenhop is searching for a new one after being advised of a jump in his rent.

“They’re putting the rent up, but they’re not doing any repairs,” he said. “A lot of the landlords are happy to take their money, but don’t care about what it’s like to live in these places.”

Mr Badenhop said it would be tough finding something else in the area.

“We’ve got two kids in the local school, which is just fantastic. We want them to stay there,” he said.

“But trying to get a four-bedroom place near the school is very hard. The rents are extravagant. They’re asking top dollar and what comes available goes very quickly.”

He said he and partner Cheryl had inspected some rental properties where they had had to queue to get in.

“There aren’t enough good quality rentals,” he said. “The government needs to create some incentive for landlords to buy houses.”

Real Estate Institute of Victoria figures show conditions for renters have becoming tighter in Melbourne’s outer suburbs since winter, with the vacancy rate now below 1 per cent.

“There’s only one answer and that’s to build more homes where people want to live,” Mr Badenhop said. “We need a few years of sustained building activity.”

Nancy Sleiman, property manager at LJ Hooker Hampton Park, said there was high demand for rentals in the $280-$320 bracket.

“Rents have risen a lot,” she said. “People who have been paying in the low two hundreds are quite shocked when they move out and see how much they’ll have to pay for another place.”

MARINA: A new life in Australia

THREE years after migrating from Mauritius, Marina is happy she and her family have gained permanent residency.

“Mauritius is good for people who have work, but the cost of living is getting higher and there are better opportunities in Australia,” she said. “There are a lot of people in Mauritius who are planning to come here. Applying for PR was hard, but we have it now, so we’re starting a new life.”

First, however, they have to find a new home. Marina, who works as a personal carer, and did want her surname used, said they moved into their rental home on Strong Drive about 18 months ago but learnt recently the house had been listed for sale.

The house has been on the market for two months so far, which has forced them to leave it every Saturday afternoon while prospective buyers inspect it.

“The lease runs until July, so we have until then to leave, but we’ve started looking around,” she said. “We want another home on a bus route.”

MATTHEW HINE: Giving back to the community

HE HAS lived in the street most of his life, but Matthew Hine, 21, says a high turnover of residents in the past five years means his family now knows few of their neighbours.

“Until I was about 15, it was a big community here. Everyone knew everyone,” he said. “In just the last few years a big bunch have moved on. You see people come and go and you don’t really know who they are any more.”

Mr Hine feels a close connection with his neighbourhood: a row of houses at his end of the street formed a display village for the estate when it opened, and his family’s home was built with plans based on those homes. He also attended the first day of classes at Kilberry Valley Primary School when it opened in 1998, although its roll was a lot smaller then – today it has about 900 students.

He likes to give back to the community as well. He helps to run before-and-after school care programs at a primary school in nearby Berwick and is a volunteer leader with the Navy Cadets at Hampton Park Secondary College, a weekly after-school program that provides students with skills in leadership and teamwork.

“I was a cadet at the school as well and now I’m a staff member,” he said.

Next year he gets serious on building another career, this time in commercial real estate, when he establishes a local presence in the area for Kevin Wright Real Estate. He hopes to incorporate the work into his existing schedule, which will deepen his links even more with the local community.

Will it be a lucrative career? “I hope so,” he said.

MATTHEW BALSARINI: A quieter place

AFTER living almost all his life in Dandenong, landscaper Matthew Balsarini chose Hampton Park as the place to raise his family.

“It was getting a bit rough there,” he said. “We just didn’t feel comfortable.

“It’s quieter here – apart from the P-platers – and the kindergarten and school are close.”

He and wife Kylie accept they will be renting for a while longer.

“The property prices are too high, especially with both of us on minimum wages. But we made a choice to have kids and decided that was more important than buying a house or having a fancy car.”

 
BUS COMPANY PULLS OUT THE STOPS

DOZENS of Strong Drive residents who catch a bus to Fountain Gate Shopping Centre will be forced to walk further when the service through their street is cut from tomorrow.

Cranbourne Transit says it will axe services through the street as part of an upgrade to the 895 route. Under the changes, buses will run seven days until 9pm with more frequent services, with the help of three new buses.

A spokesman said there had been no community consultation on the route changes. Flyers were sent to residents recently to advise of the change, but many patrons interviewed at bus stops last week by the Sunday Herald Sun were unaware of it. There were no notices displayed on bus stop timetables or the bus company website.

“We had to take some shortcuts to achieve the new timetables,” the spokesman said. “The buses won’t run through Strong Drive, they’ll continue along Warana Drive, which is within 400m of the original bus route. Any change will upset certain people, but it will be a better outcome.”

Other streets will be cut from the route as well.

He said the decision had been made by the company after consultation with the Transport Department.

“They have minimum requirements for services and they give us recommendations,” he said. “But they don’t know the area, we do.”

But residents expressed dismay.

“It’s disappointing,” said one woman, who works at Fountain Gate. “They didn’t give us a reason why it’s stopped.”

Another couple, both aged in their 70s, said they caught the bus to Fountain Gate several times a week.

“There are a lot of old people who catch the bus and it’s a long way to walk up the hill to Warana Drive,” the man said. “Everyone is upset.”

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