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Norlane, Victoria

Norlane
GeelongVictoria
Ford stamping plant Geelong.jpg
Princes Highway outside the Ford stamping plant in 2009
Population 7,934 (2006 census)
 • Density 1,556/km2 (4,030/sq mi)
Postcode(s) 3214
Area 5.1 km2 (2.0 sq mi)
LGA(s) City of Greater Geelong
State electorate(s) Lara
Federal Division(s) Corio
Suburbs around Norlane:
Lovely Banks Corio Corio
Lovely Banks Norlane North Shore
Bell Post Hill Bell Park North Geelong

Norlane is a northern suburb of Geelong, in Victoria, Australia. Norlane is located about 7 km from the Geelong central business district and approximately 70 km from the state capital, Melbourne. Situated 1 km from the Port Phillip Bay, Corio Bay, North Shore Beach.

The suburb of Norlane was named after Norman Lane, a local serviceman from the district who died working on the Burma Thai Railway in 1943, after being captured in Singapore.

The Post Office opened on 17 December 1945 as development of the suburb began. Later, the Post Office of Norlane West opened on 13 October 1958.

With the enormous pressure on housing in the early 1950s, residents resorted to small dwellings, tents and partially completed buildings. The Housing Commission of Victoria provided accommodation for families unable to rent or to afford the purchase of their own home.

In 1947 the government Housing Commission began its house-building program in Norlane, and by 1976 when its program was completed there were 2,464 commission houses available for low income renters. Much of the housing was for employees at the nearby Ford Motor Company, International Harvester, Shell, Pilkington Glass, Hendersons and Pivot Phosphate factories.

As workers hungry for employment (among them wartime migrants building new lives) flocked to Geelong to take up jobs the Victorian Government responded through its Housing Commission by buying up broad acres north of the Ford plant and building homes by the hundreds. Norlane was quickly transformed from paddocks to busy working class suburbia in a decade. By 1960, the urban landscape of streets, roads, crescents, courts and boulevards which we know today had extended as far as Corio Village. For Geelong, it was an amazing and exciting time.

Many of the houses built in Norlane were prefabricated units imported from the Netherlands and France.

The suburb contains one site listed on the Victorian Heritage Register, the Ford Motor Company Complex on Melbourne Road.


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