The integration of nature into our urban environments brings many benefits not only to our health and well-being but also in dealing with the adverse impacts of climate change. The Wyndham community is concerned about the impacts of climate change and, as importantly, the protection and safeguarding of its natural environments.

Planting more trees reduces the urban heat island effect. Providing cooling shade, sequestering carbon and supporting stormwater management (remembering that Wyndham’s topography is very flat), protection and expansion of the city’s green lungs will inject nature into the city’s urban landscapes and enhance neighbourhood amenity. In addition, integrating blue-green infrastructure through Wyndham’s urban areas helps manage flooding and drought, increases biodiversity and provides recreational opportunities with access to nature.

Blessed with 27.4km of coastline to Port Philip Bay, rivers and creeks such as the Werribee River and Skeleton Creek, wetlands supporting an abundance of birdlife, parks and linear open spaces as well as nature trails Wyndham is where city meets coast and countryside. The Werribee River has always been of considerable significance, it is significant to the indigenous history of Wyndham and derives its name from an Aboriginal word meaning spine or backbone. Market gardens that supply Victoria with 85% of the state’s cauliflower, 53% of its broccoli and 34% of its lettuce and native grasslands edge the urban areas. It is little wonder the Wyndham City logo celebrates the city’s identity with the words City Coast Country.

However, several of the city’s open space elements are currently severed in many places by rail and roads. Walking and cycle paths become dead-ends creating a disconnection between residential neighbourhoods and suburbs, making it harder to access activity centres and train stations on foot or by bicycle. Many residential streets lack the cloak of greenery that can contribute so much to the enjoyment, appearance and amenity of where people live.

The Green Lungs – Coast and Country big idea aims to conserve, manage and enhance the riverine, grasslands and coastal environments of Wyndham and to complement this network of public open spaces with more family friendly parks, greenways along main roads and residential streets, easily accessed and interconnected pedestrian and bicycle paths and botanical gardens within the urban landscape. This big idea is all about expanding, consolidating and enhancing the open space links across the entire Wyndham city.

It’s about building a connected green and blue city framework – a network of linear spaces conceived, planned and managed for multiple purposes, including recreation and biodiversity conservation.

By creating an integrated open space network of ‘green capillaries’ extending from the coastline into the urban areas of Wyndham and then into the grasslands of Wyndham means that the green lungs of the countryside are integrated into the city’s urban fabric in an equitable and connected way. It goes hand in glove with Wyndham being a city committed to ecological sustainability, stability and biodiversity. Greenways fulfil an aesthetic and cultural role. They provide pedestrian and cyclist paths which are safe and pleasant to use noting that active modes of transport support healthy active communities.

Greening along the Regional Rail Corridor will create visual interest and natural beauty to what is otherwise a flat, bland and uninteresting landscape. It will also connect with the green lungs that follow the rivers and streams throughout Wyndham enabling people to walk or ride a bicycle along these nature trails connecting new communities with the coastline and countryside. At the metropolitan level the continuation of the Bay Trail around Port Philip Bay to interconnect with Wyndham’s coastline and green lungs will attract more visitors to its tourist attractions and provide an alternative route and “epic ride” for cyclists to access Melbourne’s CBD and seaside suburbs.