Response to ABC News article about Frankston

In response to the ABC News article about Frankston that was published on May 2, Committee for Greater Frankston’s official statement follows. 

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While the Committee for Greater Frankston appreciates any media coverage of the inadequate public transport in our city – as well as the long-running call to extend the metro train line as part of the solution – the article’s focus on the lack of demographic diversity in Frankston was unbalanced.

This is a symptom of successive governments’ inadequate planning to increase the variety of housing options as well as insufficient investment in our region’s transport infrastructure. It is not the fault of Frankston residents.

Frankston was declared Melbourne’s most affordable liveable suburb in early 2020 by Domain Group. The median house price of $570,000 is well below Melbourne’s average of $1 million.

The municipality has some of the best beaches of any Melbourne bayside suburb. It has public parks, gardens, walking and bike trails, and recreational facilities the envy of many suburbs as well as top-performing schools; clean air; and many cultural assets including a vibrant arts centre, historic homesteads, internationally renowned sculpture park and more.

We have one of Melbourne’s biggest public hospitals – currently undergoing a $562 million redevelopment – two big private hospitals, and good public and private schools.

Then there is Monash University’s Peninsula campus and Chisholm Institute’s Frankston campus, which is set to become Victoria’s largest technical training facilities. And construction has started on Peninsula Health’s new Academic and Research Centre, as part of the National Centre for Healthy Ageing.

The most recent Census showed that 30 per cent of Frankston’s population was born overseas and recent immigrants have come from India, Sri Lanka and the Philippines.

They have discovered the benefits of living and working in Frankston and we look forward to welcoming more people from a range of different social and ethnic backgrounds in the coming years.

Now it is time for both state and federal governments to work with our community to build the critical metropolitan transport infrastructure and other facilities we need to support this growth.

– Committee for Greater Frankston board of directors

The ABC article can be accessed here.