Council’s consultants are maestros in camouflaging the real facts and figures that should be the basis of all decent strategic planning. This of course only reinforces our view that the role of consultants is to provide any so called ‘evidence’ which will support decisions already made by this planning department.

This post focuses on the two traffic reports for the Bentleigh & Elsternwick structure plans. Both were done by the same company – yet they are very different in important components. Why?

We will start off with Elsternwick. On page 28 of the study we have this image:

We are told that: Dwellings in Elsternwick are a split of single detached dwellings (57%) and multi-unit dwellings (43%). The phrasing of ‘single detached dwellings’ would imply that these dwellings are stand alone houses and ‘multi-unit’ dwellings are interpreted as flats. Are we therefore witnessing some sleight of hand, when these figures are compared to what the 2021 Census results tell us? If our interpretation of ‘single detached dwellings’ coincides with the ABS interpretation, then these results are far more than bogus – they represent a deliberate attempt to distort and hide the true facts. Interestingly, we can find no definition in the consultant’s reports of what ‘single detached dwellings’ and ‘multi-unit dwellings’ means.

Compare the above with what the census reveals below:

38% compared to the reports 57%!!!!!!! We can only assume that the 38% has been added to the 19.3% to come anywhere near the stated 57%. If this is the case, then it is entirely misleading – especially since the consultants provide no definitions or explanations.

Another aspect of the above page is the claim that 12% of HOUSEHOLDS don’t own a car. The resorting to ‘households’ instead of dwellings is interesting. When we look at the car ownership per dwelling we get a completely different result (see below).

The Bentleigh transport report doesn’t follow the Elsternwick version. Instead we now get comparisons on page 128/9 to Windsor!!!! Readers should remember that we have been repeatedly told that we CANNOT compare one municipality to another. Yet, this is exactly what this supposed traffic analyses has done. And it doesn’t hold up to scrutiny when we find that Windsor compared to Bentleigh is an entirely different proposition!

For starters, we now are looking exclusively at PERCENTAGES and not NUMBERS in the attempt to prove how similar these two suburbs are. What is not stated are the following that completely change the conclusions. The table below is derived from the ABS 2021 census data.

Please note:

  • Bentleigh’s population is close to 3 times that of Windsor
  • The number of dwellings in Bentleigh is double that of Windsor
  • The number of dwellings without cars in Bentleigh is 446 and Windsor is 344. When these numbers are calculated as a PERCENTAGE of dwellings without cars, then of course Windsor will have a higher percentage given it has half of the dwellings in Bentleigh.

There is much, much more that could be written about these traffic reports and the invalidity of what is presented. Yet these documents are supposed to form the ‘evidence’ for structure plan recommendations. They fail dismally and are there simply to fulfill all legal requirements instead of providing an analyses that does hold up to scrutiny. We can only wonder how much these reports have cost ratepayers!!!!!! Undoubtedly money well spent when the objective is to facilitate more and more development with increased deterioration of residential amenity!