One new town every three weeks

IT might surprise many to learn that Australia contained 1755 separate towns and localities at the time of the 2006 census, up 30 over the previous five years.

The number of new towns created in this period was actually 96. Some 66 towns were either subsumed by the advance of suburban sprawl or their population base dropped below the threshold that separates "urban" from "rural".

An average of 19 new towns are created in Australia every year, or about one every three weeks. All but three of the new towns created over the five years to 2006 contained fewer than 1000 residents.

Many of these places already existed in 2001 but they would have had a population base of less than 200. Once a community passes the 200 mark it is considered to be an urban locality. At 1000 residents, a mere locality magically transmogrifies into a beautiful urban centre.

Australia's newest towns are in all states and the Northern Territory. The ACT is pretty much stuck with Canberra.

The new town with the greatest population base at the time of the 2006 census was the tree-change community of Laurimar, immediately south of the Yan Yean Reservoir and about 8km beyond Melbourne's northern edge.

Laurimar is a planned community being developed by Delfin in the shire of Whittlesea. Between the 2001 and 2006 censuses Laurimar added just over 2000 residents. It is the largest separate new town created in Australia so far this century.

Of course, there are other examples of large urban communities being forged over this period, but these are either within or on the edge of an established urban centre. The advantage and the challenge of creating a separate new town like Laurimar is that its infrastructure cannot be leveraged off an existing and contiguous urban mass. All the basic necessities of life must be provided locally for such a community to work.

But before Laurimar's marketing department gets too excited about this town's newfound demographic fame, the 2006 census also uncovered two other new towns with more than 1000 residents.

Melbourne might have Laurimar but Sydney has Horsley Park. Here is a separate new town with 1615 residents west of Wetherill Park on Fairfield's suburban edge. Horsley Park, like Laurimar, offers quiet tree-change isolation less than 10km from the edge of a capital city.

Brisbane is also in on this new tree-change town act with the formation of Willowbank (pop 1018) in an area immediately south of the Amberley airforce base in the City of Ipswich.

Beyond these towns there are 93 new urban localities with between 200 and 1000 residents. The largest of these is a rural community at Acton Park (pop 788) some 5km east of Hobart's Bellerive.

Western Australia offers the new tree-change locality of Bindoon (pop 739) in the shire of Chittering to the north of Perth's Swan Valley.

South Australia has a new urban locality at Silver Sands (pop 668) while the Northern Territory offers the same at Robertson Barracks (pop 635).

But of greater interest than the location of the largest new urban communities in each state is the fact that just two municipalities are responsible for generating eight new settlements. Here are two local council areas that must contain the primal brine from which new towns so readily spring.

The shire of Moorabool, stretching between Geelong, Ballarat and Melbourne's west, produced four new settlements between 2001 and 2006, as indeed did the City of Coffs Harbour on the NSW mid-north coast. These unlikely municipalities have the remarkable, perhaps spiritual, capacity to create many new towns.

Moorabool's new towns cluster off the Western Freeway linking Melton with Ballarat. Just west of Bacchus Marsh, the new town action begins with Greendale (pop 408), Dales Creek (pop 346) and Myrniong (pop 210) popping up north of the freeway, and Mt Egerton (pop 215) to the south. Here are lifestyle tree-change towns attaching themselves to the lifeline of the freeway to Melbourne. Coffs Harbour mixes its four new towns between rural idylls and the beach. The new town of Bonville (pop 400) has surfaced 10km southwest of coastal Sawtell and is supported by another new settlement at North Bonville (pop 267). What are they doing in and around Bonville to warrant two new settlements in five years? How many Bonvilles will there be at the 2011 census? Get in now and buy land before they need Bonville South, Bonville East and Bonville West.

But the proliferation of the Bonvilles is not the main game in the greater City of Coffs Harbour. The main game is the formation of a new settlement at Emerald Beach West, which debuted as an urban locality in 2006 with 737 residents. Emerald Beach is between Coffs Harbour and Woolgoolga. And 5km south of Emerald Beach is another new urban locality within the City of Coffs Harbour. Moonee Beach West contained 336 residents at the time of the 2006 census.

What I find surprising about the new towns is firstly their proliferation: one new town every three weeks! This means that the Australian property industry must be continually planning, designing, scheming and manoeuvring to deliver new urban communities. How many consultants and other assorted hangers-on must this industry support?

The second thing that I find surprising is the number of new communities just beyond the urban fringe. This sort of development is not so much a "tree-change" (which involves an escape from the city) as a "sanctuary" from which an individual might engage (on their terms) with the city.

Perhaps this is what has made the likes of Laurimar, Horsley Park and Willowbank successful. The concept of "living in the country near the city" is obviously highly attractive to many Australians.

The challenge for the property industry is to deliver this model in the right location and within planning and budgetary constraints.

Bernard Salt is a partner with KPMG

bsalt@kpmg.com.au