St Andrews and Panton Hill: Transport Needs Assessment - Public ...

2.2 PopulationPopulation levels in the towns of St Andrews and Panton Hill experienced only minor changesbetween 1996 and 2006, presented in Table 1. Comparable figures are not currently availablefrom the 2011 Census from the Department of Planning and Community Development howeverbased on these figures and the projected populations presented in Table 2, it is expected that thepopulation of the towns in the assessment area will not change significantly in the future.Table 1: Population Changes from 1996 to 2006 (Department of Planning and CommunityDevelopment, 2006)Towns 1996 2001 2006St Andrews 371 394 381Panton Hill 444 425 518The population of Nillumbik Shire is projected to increase between 2011 and 2031 by an annualgrowth rate of 0.6 per cent, presented in Table 2. This is much lower than the rate for theVictorian population, which is projected to increase by an annual growth rate of 1.3 cent over thesame period of time.Table 2: Projected Population from 2016 to 2031 (ABS, 2011, and Department of Planningand Community Development, 2012)NillumbikShireActual 2011 2016 2021 2026 203160,342 65,939 68,124 70,281 72,238It is expected that most of the growth for Nillumbik Shire will occur in the designated urban areasof Eltham and Diamond Creek, not within the assessment area. Eltham and Diamond Creek havegreater capacity to accommodate population growth because they are not as hindered byplanning restrictions as the assessment area is.Figure 3 shows the distribution of population across different age groups for the assessment areain comparison to Victoria. The assessment area is populated by a noticeably lower proportion ofpeople over 65 years of age compared to the state distribution. There is also a larger proportionof the population that are school aged in comparison to the state distribution. This suggests thatthe assessment area is home to many young families.Page 6