Warrnambool's new housing boom to hit record levels as population surges

With the city's population experiencing the biggest growth in almost a decade, Warrnambool is on track to break residential construction records.

The council's city growth director Andrew Paton said for the 11 months to May this year, Warrnambool reported 303 new house builds, well above the historical five-year annual average of 180.

Councillor Ben Blain told the July council meeting the planning department had done a year's worth of planning applications in the last six months of last year with no extra staff.

Mayor Vicki Jellie congratulated the planning department for doing extra without more staff and while "under pressure".

"That's a really great outcome," she said.

Mr Paton said the high levels of new house builds across Warrnambool throughout 2020-21, along with a strong pipeline of commercial investments across the city, was a strong signal of confidence in the future of Warrnambool.

Warrnambool's population as at June 30 last year was about 35,533 which was an increase of 352 on the previous year and an annual average growth rate of one per cent.

Mr Paton said that made it the largest increase in population in absolute numbers since 2013.

Mr Paton said Warrnambool was now the fifth fastest growing regional city in the state in terms of the annual average growth rate.

That put the city's growth behind the larger centres of Geelong, Ballarat, Bendigo and Wodonga but ahead of Shepparton, Horsham, Mildura, Latrobe and Wangaratta.

Warrnambool's population is set to grow to 44,210 by 2036.

That is almost 10,000 more people than in 2017-18 when an extra 234 people - or 0.8 per cent - made the city their home.

Mr Paton said the concentration of growth across the region continued to occur in Warrnambool cementing its significance as a regional services centre and as a great place to live, work and invest.

"Warrnambool's role in providing services to the region will continue to grow in significance as major investments in sectors such as health, education and commercial enterprises roll out in coming years," he said.

"The $384 million announcement for the second stage of Warrnambool's South West Healthcare will further strengthen our health and social services sector as our city's largest employing sector."

Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can access our trusted content:

Have you signed up to The Standard's daily newsletter and breaking news emails? You can register below and make sure you are up to date with everything that's happening in the south-west.

CORONAVIRUS STORIES:

We have removed our paywall from our stories about the coronavirus. This is a rapidly changing situation and we aim to make sure our readers are as informed as possible. If you would like to support our journalists you can subscribe here.