INDUSTRIAL LAND USE STRATEGY - City of Darebin

3 CHANGES IN THE DAREBIN ECONOMYThe Darebin economy is changing.The industrial structure is shifting tosmaller and more locally orientedproduction and the skills of the locallabour-force are becoming moreoriented to the service economy.3.1 Activities on IndustrialLandTraditional manufacturing industries aredeclining, especially the largest employerssuch as footwear and automotivecomponents.There is a trend to firms with feweremployees (although there are still manylarge firms in the municipality).There is a trend for local firms to producemore for local and regional markets than fornational or export markets, and this isreflected in the growth of service and salesactivities.Whilst overall manufacturing activities inthe municipality have grown, much of thisgrowth has occurred outside industrial areas,including shop-front bakeries, printingservices and so on.The local economy has not benefited fromthe growth of advanced manufacturing orother highly skilled activities on industrialland. Indeed, it has lost jobs in these areas(through relocation of the CSIRO BuildingDivision, and Ericsson, for example). TheTechnology Park at La Trobe University hasnot yet proved to be a significant draw-cardfor advanced-technology enterprises after 10years operation.There are several reasons for the changesin industrial structure:• Land-extensive industries – large-scalemanufacturing and associatedcomponents manufacturers,distribution and warehousing – havefound locations on the metropolitanfringe and with easy access to themetropolitan freeway network to havelower operational costs (rents,transport, flexibility of land-use etc).• The skills of the accessible labourforcehave not been suitable foradvanced manufacturing activities,compared with other areas inMelbourne (Mulgrave, Clayton, PortMelbourne etc).• The building stock and widerenvironment have not been attractivefor advanced manufacturing andresearch enterprises. These firms mustcompete to attract skilled staff andprefer areas with high cultural and/orenvironmental attributes, includingvibrant activity centres, knowledgeprecincts or parkland. Darebin hasbeen unable to package its attributes toattract firms in these sectors.Notwithstanding the trends fordecline, Darebin retains a large anddiverse industrial sector.Industrial activity is concentratedprincipally in the three core industrialareas of Reservoir, East Preston andFairfield/Alphington, although with avariety of small and medium-sized(secondary) industrial areas scatteredthroughout the southern half of themunicipality.City of Darebin Industrial Land Use Strategy 5