The community of Provost Street have been advocating to the City of Melbourne to undertake changes to their street since 2016. A Provost and Little Provost Street, Street Greening Proposal was developed by Council, in response to the community support for a greener, cooler street and a desire for open space to expand on the existing community street garden. Little Provost Street was identified for priority street tree planting in the North and West Melbourne Urban Forest Precinct Plan.

The Provost and Little Provost Street, Street Greening Proposal was developed for community consultation in September 2020 to seek feedback on the proposed changes to Provost and Little Provost streets.

Feedback was gathered through an online survey, which asked the community what they thought of the concept plan. A question and answer forum was also available to ask questions about the project.

On 10 September 2020, the City of Melbourne project team met with 15 members of the community online via Zoom to discuss the proposed concept plan. The session was run over a 90 minute period and provided a platform for the community to discuss their ideas and have a conversation with expert staff from City of Melbourne, including landscape architects and arborists. This online session also included two ‘break-out room’ style discussions, where community members discussed two key topics in smaller focus groups which were facilitated by City of Melbourne staff.

Key themes

• Greener streets, with large canopy trees and understory planting are a priority to attract birds and cool the street.
• The speed that cars currently travel through Provost Street makes the street feel unsafe, we need to introduce traffic calming elements to slow the flow.
• A streetscape that encourages community interaction would be something to look forward to.
• Trees are not growing very well in the current conditions.
• Residents’ ability to park vehicles close to their property remains a priority, and they do not want to lose any more parking places than necessary.
• Grass is preferred to gravel or other paving materials for the surface of the nature strip.
• Introducing speed-humps could be an effective way to manage the speed of vehicles here.

Based on the community feedback, changes we made include:

• The inclusion of speed bumps at each end of Provost Street. These will be incorporated into additional greening and kerb outstands that will further narrow the road and slow down through traffic.
• Include a trial of lawn for the nature strip crossovers.
• We reviewed the car parking losses in Little Provost Street to ensure that parking is not removed unnecessarily.
• Improved soil volumes and conditions for optimal tree growth for long term greening outcomes.
• Explore whether further resident only restricted car parking along Provost and Little Provost is supported.

We will complete design documentation in preparation for construction in mid–late 2021.

We will notify all affected households and businesses of final designs, expected construction timelines, road closures, tree removals or other disruptions.

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