Suburb Snapshot: Alfredton

The size of Alfredton is approximately 7.9 square kilometres and has 13 parks covering nearly 3.2 per cent of total area. The population of Alfredton in 2011 was 7,194 people and by the 2016 Census the population was 9,228 showing a population growth of 28.3 per cent in the area during that time.

Alfredton is a residential and industrial area on the outskirts of Ballarat, one km south west of Lake Wendouree. The name was thought to be given to the district in honour of Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh and second son of Queen Victoria, who visited Australian in 1867-68. A school which had been opened there in 1868 was named Western Public School Ballarat, but it adopted the name Alfredton in the early 1870s.

Travellers can enter Alfredton as they pass through the Arch of Victory and the tree-lined Avenue of Honour on the Western Highway. Alfredton was a rural area until intensified industrialisation and urban expansion occurred in the 1960s. North of the Western Highway Alfredton had extensive public lands and institutional uses, including the Lakeside Hospital, elderly persons’ homes, the Prince of Wales recreation reserve, the Ballarat golf course and the Ballarat high school (originally the Agricultural High School, 1910). In about 2000 the area north of the highway was detached, subdivided for modern detached housing, and named Lake Gardens and the hospital became an aquatic centre.

CoreLogic data indicates that the predominant age group in Alfredton is 10- 19 years with households in Alfredton being primarily couples with children and are likely to be repaying $1,400 – $1,799 per month on mortgage repayments, and in general, people in Alfredton work in a professional occupation.

Source: Ballarat Times News Group