Growing pains spike

Infrastructure can’t keep pace with rate of migration to Coast

THE Glitter Strip is growing faster than expected with more than 16,000 people migrating to the greater Gold Coast in the past year.

At least 2000 Sydneysiders moved to the Tweed, which was considered part of the Gold Coast catchment, Australia Bureau of Statistics data shows.

The average annual growth rate for the greater Gold Coast in the past decade was 13,524.

A leading demographer says the move north is motivated by the Gold Coast’s life- style and lower house than Sydney.

The city’s growth, which is significantly above the 10-year growth trend and second only to the greater Melbourne region, has sparked calls for spending on the city’s roads to remain in step with the population spike.

Social researcher Mark McCrindle said the Tweed region had proved highly popular with residents of Sydney.

“The interstate migration to the area is massive and in the Tweed area we’ve had 2500 come from the outer suburbs of Sydney, 403 from the northern beaches, 360 from the eastern prices suburbs, 285 from the city of Sydney and 175 from Sutherland Shire,” he said.

“This data shows that more people left Sydney for other parts of Australia in the last year than actually came there, but it also shows there are more people moving to the Gold Coast from other places.

“What it comes down to is affordability in the housing relative to Sydney’s $1 million median price.

“There is also the lifestyle, the climate and everything else which has contributed to making the Gold Coast Australia’s sixth-largest city.”

But the growth is putting further pressure on increasingly choked roads, with frequent traffic jams on the M1 and feeder roads on to the motorway slowing to a halt during twice daily ‘peak hour’.

A business case is being developed for the upgrade of the M1 from Varsity Lakes to Tugun which is expected to be completed by the end of the year.

But Gold Coast North Chamber of Commerce secretary Gary Mays said the city’s road network had not kept pace with the significant population growth, either with new roads or upgrades to existing infrastructure.

He said there was no easy solutions to dealing with the growth.

“I wish I had answers to this but every time I get stuck on the M1 I look around and wonder what this sort of thing is doing to productivity,” he said.

“It is easy to lay the blame on politicians for focusing too much on the short term but it would be great if the people who made decisions looked more at the long-term.

“It’s a bloody nightmare, we don’t have any commuter roads which run alongside the M1.”

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