Cooling the Upfield Corridor

Project background

Responding to the impacts of the Urban Heat Island Effect is an emerging priority for Merri-bek City Council.

Council's Urban Heat Island Effect Action Plan 2016-26 identified the Upfield Corridor as having some of the hottest surface temperatures within Merri-bek, and set out a range of strategies to minimise surface temperatures within the Upfield Corridor.

This project turns these broad strategies into an Action Plan to introduce water and landscaping to the Upfield Corridor to reduce land surface temperatures and improve amenity in public areas. This Action Plan identifies existing actions which are already underway and also helps coordinate new ideas and activities across Council to cool the corridor.

Download the Cooling the Upfield Corridor Action Plan 2018-2029 (PDF 10Mb).

Key priorities of the Action Plan

• Develop an action plan to reduce the urban heat island effect along the Upfield Corridor.
• Identify locations for introducing water and landscaping along the Corridor.
• Improve pedestrian and bicycle amenity along the Corridor to encourage walking and cycling.
• Coordinated approach across Council.

Study area

This Action Plan relates to the land bounded by the Merri Creek to the north, Barrow Street to the east, the Upfield Rail Line to the west and Park Street to the south.

The site stretches across the suburbs of Coburg and Brunswick and encompasses Jewell, Brunswick, Anstey, Merri-bek and Coburg train stations, the major public transport corridors of tram routes 19 and 6, and numerous bus routes which travel in the area.

Consultation

Submissions for the draft Cooling the Upfield Corridor Action Plan 2018-29 closed on 16 May 2018.

We ran two consultation sessions to gather community feedback and provided an online form for feedback.

Report to Council 

The Cooling the Upfield Corridor Action Plan was endorsed by Council in October 2018.

Further information

If you have any queries regarding the project, contact Council's Urban Design Unit on 9240 2472 or email the Cooling the Upfield Corridor project.