Trees at reserve on the chopping block

TREES and other vegetation are set to be removed from Groves Reserve in Aspendale by the Level Crossing Removal Project imminently in a move described by environmentalists as “mindless”.

Groves Reserve is a remnant pocket of Banksia Woodland in between Nepean Highway and the train line at the border of Aspendale and Mordialloc. The LXRP plans to remove long-standing trees from the parkland, The News understands.

Kingston Residents Association vice-president Rosemary West has slammed the plans, and has requested that the environment minister intervene. “It has recently come to our notice that the LXRP has plans to begin this work and that some significant trees have been marked for removal,” she said. “Our community is about to lose what is left of the Coast Banksia Woodland vegetation that once lined the railway line through most of Kingston. Returning all of Groves Reserve to parkland for conservation purposes would at least partially compensate the community for the loss of so much of our native vegetation.”

West has called for Scope to move away from the site as a potential solution. “The LXRP needs to move the Station Street railway crossing, and their current plan is to move it to the site of the present pedestrian crossing at Pine Lane. This would bisect Groves Reserve and remove even more of the remnant Coast Banksia Woodland on the site,” she said. “If the Scope demountables could be relocated, the crossing could be move to the current site of the demountables.

“We are urgently requesting a stay of the demolition of this environmentally significant woodland until further investigation and proper consultation with those of us who think it would be possible to proceed with the LXRP works without destroying the reserve.”
The LXRP was contacted for comment.

First published in the Chelsea Mordialloc Mentone News – 12 February 2025