Data from the Transport Accident Commission shows the council area sits behind eight other metro areas for the severity of road danger over the past decade:Mornington Peninsula (82 deaths and 73 serious injuries);Yarra Ranges (81 deaths and 73 serious injuries);Cardinia (73 deaths and 66 serious injuries);Brimbank (73 deaths and 64 injuries);Casey (72 deaths and 62 serious injuries);Wyndham (70 deaths and 57 serious injuries);Monash (56 deaths and 50 serious injuries);and Hume (62 deaths and 55 serious injuries).

But Kesic said Melton was being overlooked and was handling not only a surge in local drivers from housing estates but also,on roads such as the Western Highway,vehicles heading to Ballarat,Geelong and South Australia.

“It’s the sheer numbers of the vehicles on a very small,basic road which is what I say is ‘chariot-class’,” he said.

Liz Taylor,a senior lecturer in urban planning and design at Monash University,said she “lacked words” for the scale of growth in Melton over the past 15 years,with much attributed to an explosion in housing estates in what used to be empty paddocks.

Developers of housing estates contribute a tax to fund infrastructure to cater for the people they bring to an area,but Taylor said the way the money was allocated by state governments was “opaque” and it was not dispensed in a timely way that kept pace with growth.

“I wouldn’t say[growth in Melton] is without strategy,but there is a lag[in funding],” she said. “It happens over decades when people are moving there now.”

Before the federal election earlier this year,Labor committed to a $10 million business case for the Western Highway upgrade,and the state government allocated $14.9 million to duplicate a small section of the Melton Highway.

But Kesic said those commitments fell well short of the work needed,and his area was being overlooked compared with other growth corridors.

“There is so much more to be done. This is just a drop in the sea really,” he said.

The Victorian government has committed $16.86 million to upgrading the intersections of Melton Highway and Sunshine Avenue,and Old Calder Highway and Sunshine Avenue – although these roads are not part of Melton City Council’s campaign push and works have not begun.

A spokeswoman for the government pointed to its investment in roads in Melbourne’s west through the Western Roads Upgrade,and said the Western Rail Plan was “investigating a fast,high-capacity rail network servicing growing outer suburbs and regional cities”.

Melton,once a safe Labor seat,is tipped as an electorate to watch at the November state election,among several outer-suburban seats up for grabs due in part to dissatisfaction with lockdowns and cost-of-living pressures.

In 2018,Labor recorded a statewide 5 per cent swing in its favour,but in Melton there was a 7 per cent swing to the Liberal Party. The Liberals have preselected former Burwood MP Graham Watt.

Coalition spokesman for public transport and roads Danny O’Brien said the Liberal candidate had lobbied him on “local needs in Melton” and the Coalition would announce road policies closer to the election.

“So many communities want to see investment in road projects but they are being stymied by a government that has overseen cost blowouts of $30 billion on Melbourne mega-projects,” he said.

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