Kyema Drive still awaits flood relief, 45 years later

LARA residents living in flood-prone Kyema Drive have renewed their calls for the City of Greater Geelong to prioritise long-awaited flood mitigation works in the area, after its proposed four-year budget included no funding for the project.

Despite $1.3 million initially being listed in the city’s 2022-23 budget to deliver drainage upgrades, escalating costs have been attributed to ongoing delays to the project.

Kyema Drive resident Anthony Hill, who has experienced repeated flooding events since he moved to the street in 1982, said local residents had been pleading for a solution for almost 45 years.

“That is unforgiveable,” he said. “We’re all waiting for the big one to come through… it’s a lot to live with.

“Listening to the rain, that’s one of the strangest things. You sit here listening and you think ‘Stop. Please stop. Please stop.’

“Ten times out of 10 it has, the rain’s eased back, but the couple of times it has flooded, you can actually hear the rain doesn’t stop. It just keeps going and going.

“You’re listening to it for hours and you know full well that [the city’s] system cannot handle it.”

He questioned the city’s repeated decision to prioritise other projects, particularly sporting facility upgrades, across the region over the flood mitigation works.

“Improving the tennis courts and things like that don’t really affect people’s lives… they’ve got no risk of coming home and finding all their furniture under water,” he said.

In an effort to ease some of his anxiety, Mr Hill has installed an automatic pumping system he hopes will prevent water entering his home when the next major rain event comes.

“It gives us a bit of security, I suppose. Not much, I do stress.”

For fellow Kyema Drive residents John Winkler and his partner Yvonne Verheem, a 2014 council commitment to rectify the flooding issues, which extend well beyond the bounds of just the one street, gave them confidence not to sell up and move.

“We decided to commit to staying there and I’m really regretting the day I did because [the upgrades] never happened, and we’ve had three further broken promises since then, but now that we’re retired, we can’t move. It’s too late.

“We’ve been betrayed.”

Troy Edwards, the city’s executive director of corporate services, said community feedback played an important role in the process of forming the final 2025-26 budget.

“The period of consultation has now closed, and council will consider all of the submissions at a Submission Review Panel meeting to be held on Thursday, June 5, where community members have been invited to speak to their submissions.

“We are unable to pre-empt this process, but we thank the community for their submissions and provide assurance that each one will be given appropriate consideration.”