Bendigo Residents Speak Out: 'We Can't Keep Ignoring What's Happening to Our Creek'

Residents along the Bendigo Creek corridor say they have watched the waterway shrink to a fraction of its usual winter flow this July, and they are tired of waiting for the plans on council chamber walls to translate into work on the ground. The frustration is sharp, and it is spreading well beyond the creek banks.

The mood in Bendigo's sustainability circles has sharpened considerably in recent weeks. Sydney's Bureau of Meteorology data showing the city's hottest June since 1859 has landed hard in regional Victoria, where residents and environmental groups say Central Goldfields conditions are tracking a similar, if quieter, trajectory. For many locals, the national record isn't a distant abstraction — it's a warning they feel they've already been living.

Community Voices Along the Creek

In Kangaroo Flat, a suburb of about 9,000 people that straddles the lower Bendigo Creek, residents who gather weekly through the Connecting Country landcare network say monitoring data they have collected since March shows riparian vegetation stress at levels not typically recorded until late summer. Connecting Country, which operates out of offices on Bull Street in the CBD, has run revegetation programs across central Victoria for more than two decades, and its volunteers say this winter marks a notable shift.

Further north, at Rosalind Park — the city's oldest public garden, established in 1857 and sitting within walking distance of the Bendigo Town Hall — Friends of Rosalind Park members have flagged accelerated soil moisture loss in the rose garden beds, which are irrigated from a rainwater harvesting system installed under a 2019 City of Greater Bendigo grant. The system was sized for average annual rainfall of around 540 millimetres. Last financial year, the Bureau of Meteorology recorded just under 430 millimetres at Bendigo Airport, roughly 20 per cent below that design figure.

The Dja Dja Wurrung Clans Aboriginal Corporation, whose country encompasses the Bendigo region, has long argued that sustainable land and water management cannot be separated from Aboriginal cultural heritage protection. Corporation representatives have previously told Greater Bendigo Council that creek restoration projects risk undermining registered cultural sites if environmental works proceed without proper heritage assessments under the Aboriginal Heritage Act 2006. That concern has become a live issue again as council prepares to extend the Bendigo Creek Masterplan into the Eaglehawk reach — a $2.4 million project listed in the 2025–26 council budget.

What the Data Shows, and What Comes Next

La Trobe University's Bendigo campus, on View Street, hosts a small environmental monitoring unit that has been tracking urban heat island data across the municipality since 2021. Preliminary findings from that project, shared at a public forum at the Ulumbarra Theatre in May, suggested that tree canopy cover in Bendigo's inner suburbs has declined by approximately 8 per cent since 2015, reducing natural cooling at a time when demand for it is growing. The university is seeking additional state government funding to extend the monitoring network to outer suburbs including Strathdale and Long Gully.

City of Greater Bendigo's Integrated Water Management Strategy, adopted in 2023, commits the council to a 15 per cent reduction in potable water use across municipal operations by 2028. Progress reports tabled at the April 2026 ordinary council meeting showed the figure currently sitting at 6 per cent — meaningful progress, residents say, but well short of target with two years remaining.

Connecting Country will hold a public planning session at the Bendigo Library on Hargreaves Street on the evening of Wednesday 15 July, open to all residents. The Dja Dja Wurrung Clans Aboriginal Corporation has separately called on Greater Bendigo Council to schedule a dedicated heritage assessment consultation before any earthworks begin on the Eaglehawk creek extension. Council's next ordinary meeting is set for 23 July, where the Bendigo Creek Masterplan contract award is listed on the agenda. Residents wanting to make submissions have until 18 July to register through the council's Your Say Bendigo online portal.