Shiny new build homes surround the station and then give way abruptly to green paddocks with cows grazing in them.
The train from Melbourne’s CBD to Mernda takes an hour, trundling past the tightly packed terraced houses of Abbotsford and Clifton Hill until, to the north, they give way to the squat brick-veneer homes in Reservoir.
We are at the end of the train line, where shiny newly built homes back onto green paddocks with grazing cows. Montalti runs Turners Bakehouse, which operates out of one of the area’s oldest buildings, constructed in 1870 by Scottish immigrant Moses Thomas. “He was a canny Scotsman and he knew how to make a dollar,” Johnson says over a drink at the Bridge Inn Hotel, which only retains the original facade and is now a sprawling complex with a TAB and bistro.
These new estates house young families and new immigrants – 51 per cent of Mernda’s population has both parents born overseas. It’s long been on the drawing board, with a $180 million facility approved in 2022 by Whittlesea council including six indoor sports courts, eight outdoor netball courts and a 50-metre pool.A spokeswoman for the council said more funding was needed from state and federal governments to build the pool. “The provision of stage three of the project – the aquatic and leisure facilities will be considered by council in the 2025-26 financial year.
In October, new councillors will be elected – but monitors will remain in place for a year to “guide” them. “The issue that we’re finding, and even with a place like Mernda, is that the distance you need to travel, even though you have got a public transport connection, to access major employment markets remains problematic,” he says. “It’s always a problem with growing suburbs.”
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