Doncaster

Melbourne

Doncaster is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 15 km north-east from Melbourne’s central business district. Its Local Government Area is the City of Manningham. At the 2006 Census, Doncaster had a population of 17,879.

The suburb, locally known as ‘Donny’, is situated on 8.9 km² of land around the top of the 120m high Doncaster Hill. The suburb consists of a central area along the top of Doncaster Hill which includes several historical buildings along Doncaster Road, the Westfield Doncaster Shopping Centre and surrounding high-rise apartments, while the rest of the suburb is typical of many of Melbourne’s eastern suburbs with extensive low-density housing. Today the suburb is perhaps most notable for its Shopping Centre, one of the largest in Australia.

Doncaster was the location of the first electric tram to run in Melbourne in 1889. The tram started in Doncaster and ended in Box Hill (about 3.5 km away). Consequently this was named “Tram Road”. However, the service did not earn any profit, so it ended in 1896 due to feuds with land holders and financial problems.[6] The main road through the suburb, Doncaster Road, was formally named Main Street.

Doncaster remained an orchard area until the 1970s with the majority of houses built from the 1950s to the 1980s.

Doncaster Hill is an ambitious project transforming Central Doncaster, (Doncaster Hill) into an apartment and retail mecca. Being only 12 km from the city and with fantastic views of the Melbourne CBD skyline, much time and investment has been placed by the City of Manningham. However, a lot of apartments have not sold as predicted, and there is much controversy about the cost and scale of the project, and the impact that extra traffic congestion will create – especially as there is poor public transport services in the area.