WYNDHAM ECONOMIC GROWTH EXPLODING

Darryl Wilson is the Manager of Economic Development at Wyndham City Council and he kindly stepped in at the last minute as guest speaker after his CEO, Kelly Grigsby, was unable to attend.

Darryl spoke about the challenges facing Wyndham over the next 20 years in light of the fact that we are the fastest growing municipality in Australia. Our current population is 225,000 and, within 20 years, it is expected to grow to 430,000 which means we will be larger than the Geelong region. From Council's viewpoint, Darryl and his team are working hard to ensure that we have a good mix of healthy businesses. The number of businesses in Wyndham has grown from 10,000 in 2012 to 12,000 in 2015 an increase of 16%. By comparison, the whole of Melbourne's west has increased by 3.4% and the whole of Victoria has increased by only 0.5%.

In general, Wyndham's economic growth in recent years has been driven by the logistics, construction, manufacturing and retail sectors. There is also a rapid rise in the number of small home-based businesses.

However, we are not well endowed with technology, media, financial services, arts and health services industries. These are areas that he is trying to encourage to establish in Wyndham. Not only will it be a good opportunity for businesses in these sectors, but it will also generate more employment opportunities for our community.

The ultimate aim for Wyndham is to become a technologically advanced smart city. The development of East Werribee will be a massive project and will play a major role in assisting Council to realise this goal.