The next decade will bring population growth and change across the Manningham Local Government Area (LGA). The resident population for the municipality was over 125,000 in 2018 and is projected to increase to over 148,000 by 2036 and accommodate nearly 23,000 additional residents over the next 17 years. A critique associated with current planning methods is that they are generally quite retrospective and often populations grow before infrastructure and services are delivered which can have negative impacts on the liveability of an area. New learning and analysis techniques are needed to support more informative planning practices. This includes a focus on spatial availability and geographic access to health promoting features of the environment and services in neighbourhoods. This will build equitably serviced, healthy and liveable neighbourhoods for all residents as the population of Manningham and Melbourne continues to grow rapidly throughout the 21st century. Effective decision-making and investment requires a comprehensive understanding of current strengths and limitations of liveability and the ability to detect, monitor and track changes in liveability across time.
In 2019, the Healthy Liveable Cities Group at RMIT University completed a Neighbourhood Liveability Assessment of all the neighbourhoods across the Manningham municipality. Over 280 neighbourhoods of approximately 400 people were assessed on important liveability indicators aligned to the social determinants of health. This can be simply understood as health being determined by where we are born, live, learn, work, play and age. The Liveability Assessment was funded by the Victorian Department of Health and Human Services. It is recommended that Liveability Assessment results are shared across council departments to support integrated planning and with the broader Manningham community to assist with future community- engaged and evidence-informed planning practices in the future. This report provides a spatial analysis of 16 different indicators with 26 separate measures across neighbourhoods of the Manningham LGA and includes indicators of: Socio-Economic Index for Areas (SEIFA); Access to Alcohol; Access to Food; Access to Public Open Space; Access to Services of Daily Living; Access to Services for Older People; Access to General Practitioners; Early Childhood; Education; Employment; Family Violence; Gambling: Housing Affordability; Social Infrastructure; Transport; and Walkability.
Findings reveal that the Manningham LGA has a number of different liveability strengths and challenges. Overall, results suggest a divide between the outer eastern more rural suburbs of Park Orchards, Warrandyte, Wonga Park and sections of Donvale with the more inner suburbs of Doncaster, Doncaster East, Templestowe, Templestowe Lower and Bulleen. Less socio-economic disadvantage is visible in the more outer eastern suburbs but they remain less well serviced by public transport, services and walkable neighbourhoods. In comparison, the more inner neighbourhoods closer to central Melbourne have better access to a number of these services, but with low public transport use and reduced walkable access to public open space in many neighbourhoods. Results also reveal that there are neighbourhoods across these suburbs experiencing housing affordability stress, that are co-located in areas with high expenditure on electronic gaming and above average developmental vulnerability in children identified through the Australian Early Development Census.
The results of this report clearly identify the need for neighbourhood level assessment in Manningham as opposed to standard use municipal averages in the application of social, economic and environmental data. When LGA averages are used they combine data from the more socio-economically advantaged areas of the outer east with the more diverse results of the inner suburbs of Manningham. This results in an average LGA result for Manningham that fails to identify neighbourhoods of greater need that require further attention in future planning.