Creating shared use hubs and buildings - Lessons from Melbourne

Victoria state government has experimented with a new way to meet the need in growing communities for services and community infrastructure including schools, medical centres, sports facilities and community space.

In two growth suburbs of Melbourne, Laurimar and Caroline Springs, the Department of Planning and Community Development has facilitated partnerships between developers, councils, the state government and community organisations to developed shared use facilities including: the community having access to the school facilities for meetings, schools using community library facilities, schools and communities sharing sports and cultural facilities.

In Caroline Springs this partnership has created ten new schools, a co-located library and community building, a children's hub, a leisure centre (used by local schools and the community), a children and community centre with nursery and maternal care facilities, a community services hub in the town centre and a central online booking service for all community facilities.

There have been both hard and soft benefits: Hard benefits being a more integrated design for the new town with buildings forming a cohesive unit and significant cost savings. The Children's Hub will have saved $300,000 through joint tendering. Soft benefits include service providers having easier access to residents, especially parents, and children feeling more at home in different civic areas, like the library:

"It also means you can share information between workers and share information with parents. You can provide better care because someone can come in to see a nurse and join a play group while they're at it...Before this Centre opened the services were all over the place - you'd have to find them separately."

Liam Petersen, Coordinator, Springside Children's and Community Centre (Melton Shire)

"It gives a different dimension to the library. Kids feel at home there. They feel
comfortable because it is seen as a school library. But when school is over they are also quite happy to stay in there and do homework and hang out."

Michael Scholtes, Library Services Coordinator, Melton Shire.