Sunshine West

Sunshine West is a residential suburb between Sunshine and Derrimut, 15 km west of central Melbourne. It is west of the Kororoit Creek and contains the locality of Glengala.

The earliest urban part was the Glengala estate in the mid-1920s, reached by a bridge across the creek from Dunham Road, Sunshine to Glengala Road. Few blocks were taken up. The Sands and Macdougall directory recorded only a few residents in Glengala Road and adjoining streets, plus a shire council yard and the distant Sunshine Golf Club.

By 1951 more streets were laid out as far west as Fitzgerald Road, but south of Hilma Street there were open Derrimut grasslands.

Sunshine is at the junction of the railway lines to Ballarat and Bendigo, and became an industrial centre with the establishment of the McKay Harvester works and other industries during the 1900s to 1920s. Residential growth was for employees at Sunshine and at the more distant ordnance and explosives works to the east. During 1950-60 industrial growth and postwar immigration resulted in the tripling of Sunshine municipality’s population to over 62,000. Sunshine West participated in the residential growth.

The Sunshine Heights State primary school was opened in 1955, a Catholic primary school in 1956 and the State high school in 1961. In 1969 the State primary school had 680 pupils, two thirds of whom were of non-Australian background. Glengala primary schools (2), in the south of Sunshine West were opened in the 1970s.

When the Catholic college and its adjacent primary school began they were in Ardeer. All of Ardeer south of the railway line became part of Sunshine West in 1999.

Sunshine West has small shopping centres in Glengala Road and The Avenue, a hotel, a community centre, a Greek Orthodox church, the Isik non-denominational college (2010), several public reserves, including a linear park along Kororoit Creek, and the Western Masonic Centre. The suburb has Ardeer railway station on its northern boundary and the Western Ring Road on its western and southern boundaries.

The site vacated by the Sunshine Golf Club in 2007 has been developed for housing. Further south and east, where there is close access to the Ring Road, the land is used for industry and warehousing. Sunshine West’s census populations have been:

At the 2011 census, languages spoken at home included:

The median income of Sunshine West’s residents was 65.2% of the Victorian median at the 2011 census.