VicRoads hills facilities are slammed

– Tania Martin
A MACCLESFIELD man has labelled Monbulk’s VicRoads sub-branch in Main Street as ‘pretty useless’ after his daughters were told to go to Burwood or Dandenong to get a boat licence.
Bruce Eather said this was just one of many services that had been taken away from the Monbulk sub-branch.
“A whole lot of VicRoads services have been taken away from our local provider.
“To do a whole raft of things you’ve got to go to Dandenong or Burwood. It’s just crazy,” he said.
Mr Eather said his daughters Amber and Skye tried to get a boat licence at Monbulk several weeks ago but were told the service was no longer available.
And he said now his daughters don’t have a licence and have to go to Burwood or Dandenong to get one.
“Everyone from around this whole area, even Belgrave people, come up here to use the sub-branch. With all the services withdrawn, it’s pretty useless,” he said.
However, VicRoads manager of customer relationships Corinne Young said the sub-branch in Monbulk continues to provide a range of services to the community.
And she says the Monbulk office has never been able to issue boat licences because it is not linked to the VicRoads licensing database.
But, she said that VicRoads was currently undertaking a review of services provided at all sub-branches, including Monbulk.
“Customers can have straight forward renewals processed at sub-branches.
“However, if a customer requires a change to their registration or licensing records they will be required to visit a VicRoads office,” Ms Young said.
Ms Young said attending one of the main offices in Dandenong or Burwood greatly speeds up licence processing times and ensures changes to customer records are made overnight.
“This limits the risk of other government agencies, such as Victoria Police, accessing incorrect data and causing inconvenience or hardship to the customers as well as enhancing security and improving privacy management,” she said.
In the case of the boat licence issue, Ms Young said people could have the licence test at Monbulk but that a licence can’t be issued on the spot and is mailed to the applicant’s home address.
Ms Young said a boat licence renewal and registration can also be processed at Monbulk, except when the customers details need to be changed.
She said that if changes were required the applicant would be required to go to either Dandenong or Burwood.