source : the age
For a brief few seconds Lang Lang seems like any other small Victorian town. Then you feel a rumble approaching from down the road.
B-double trucks passing along the narrow main streets every 72 seconds seem to grow louder by the minute for Lang Lang locals. Decades of pleas for a town bypass have fallen on deaf ears.
The massive trucks – the kind that tow two semi-trailers – cart sand from local quarries through the town centre and off to construction sites across greater Melbourne at an average rate of 50 vehicles an hour, according to Cardinia Shire Council figures.
Locals say the vehicles make noise, pollute the area and are especially dangerous for children and the elderly. For more than two decades, residents have been fighting for a new route they say would bring peace to their small town between Melbourne and Phillip Island.
“That truck bypass is starting to become a bit of a legend. It may be spoken about, but there’s been nothing done,” said Brian Candy, who has lived on Westernport Road with wife Sue since 2002.
Trucks regularly rattle past the Candys’ house and along the nearby McDonalds Track, before passing spots like the bakery, the community centre and the primary school.
The long-discussed bypass would instead divert traffic around the town centre.
Lang Lang’s population increased by nearly 40 per cent across five years according to census data, rising from 1585 in 2016 to 2556 in 2021. But the growth hasn’t brought any concrete plans for a new road.
“You’re just a forgotten place sometimes … we feel very let down,” Candy says.
The Lang Lang region’s sand is essentially for the state’s construction industry. There are already 10 major quarries in the area and the potential to create more through a Strategic Extractive Resource Area (SERA) proposed by the state government.
The planning amendments would aim to reserve suitable land close to metropolitan Melbourne for future quarries, and to limit its use for other kinds of development.
Lang Lang residents’ plight is worsened by their town’s position between urban and regional Victoria. While the town’s centre is within the metro Cardinia Shire Council, sections of Lang Lang also fall into the neighbouring regional Bass Coast and South Gippsland shires.
Some residents, like farmer Allan Bullen, think this border town limbo means they will never receive enough investment for a major project like the bypass.
“Everything’s being spent in Melbourne. We can’t get a thing … [The town] you see now, if it’s still here in 10 years, you’ll be lucky,” Bullen says.
“Someone will eventually be killed in the main street … and that might change it, but I don’t want to see a road built because somebody sacrificed their life.”
Cardinia council has flagged the bypass as a key issue requiring investment and aims to raise $57 million from the state and federal governments for its delivery.
“There is a strong need for additional sand across the state, and obviously Lang Lang is particularly important for that industry,” Cardinia mayor Brett Owens said.
“We’ve always said that for the quarries to be extended [and] expanded, this bypass must occur.”
But as one of the state government’s proposed SERAs, the quarry industry in Lang Lang could soon grow even bigger.
The SERA underwent public consultation in late 2024. A final decision was originally due in late 2025 according to the Resources Victoria website, however a state government spokesperson said that the Lang Lang SERA is still under review.
“Strengthening planning controls around SERAs will ensure Victoria retains access to the vital raw materials needed to keep building new homes, hospitals, schools and infrastructure the state needs,” they said.
“We’ll continue to work with the local council to understand heavy vehicle movements through this region.”
For some, the stalled bypass plans have already had too high a cost. In August 2025, Dianne and Bob Comber left Lang Lang after over two decades, instead moving to the Gippsland city of Sale.
“We used to have our lounge room facing towards the pub near the roundabout. We had to move it further into the house because [of] the noise. You couldn’t hear the TV, you couldn’t have a conversation,” Bob says.
“We were going to live there forever. But we just couldn’t put up with it in the end,” Dianne says. “[The bypass] has been promised for so long.”
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