Bendigo's Infrastructure Decade: The Investments Reshaping the Regional City

Bendigo's recent infrastructure investment cycle, anchored by the new Bendigo Hospital that opened in 2017 as the largest regional hospital redevelopment in Victorian history, the Bendigo Stadium that provides the regional sport and entertainment venue, and the ongoing transport upgrades that the state government has funded through the regional rail network and the road corridor improvements, represents the most significant concentration of infrastructure investment in Bendigo since the gold rush era's institutional building program. The cycle's coincidence with the period of Bendigo's strongest population and economic growth creates the infrastructure legacy that the city will use for the following generation.

The $630 million Bendigo Hospital redevelopment, funded by the Victorian government and completed on the new Lucan Street site that provides the campus scale that the former multi-site hospital configuration could not achieve, delivered a facility designed for the health service needs of the next 30 years. The hospital's 374-bed capacity, expanded from the previous configuration, and the clinical technology investment that accompanied the building construction create the health infrastructure that the 250,000-person Grampians Health catchment requires for the acute care that the regional referral centre must provide.

The Bendigo Stadium, the 5,500-seat indoor sports and entertainment venue that opened in 2013 on the site adjacent to the Bendigo CBD, provides the sport and entertainment infrastructure that the Melbourne-standard NBL events, the gymnastics and the indoor sports competitions, and the concert and community events that the region's population generates demand for. The stadium's role in the Bendigo Spirit WNBL franchise's home game program gives the stadium the regular sports use that sustains the facility's economic viability alongside the periodic major events.

The regional rail upgrades on the Melbourne-Bendigo corridor, including the platform improvements and the signalling upgrades that the Victorian government has funded through the Regional Rail Revival program, address the journey time and the reliability improvements that the Bendigo commuter and the regional passenger depend on for the rail service that maintains the connection between Bendigo and Melbourne that the city's economic relationship with the state capital requires. The service frequency improvements that the upgraded infrastructure enables provide the public transport alternative to the Calder Highway road journey that reduces the carbon footprint of the Melbourne-Bendigo trip.

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