Bunbury's not a walk in the park

Bunbury is significantly less walkable than Perth, with residents requiring access to a car to perform simple day-to-day activities like grocery shopping, visiting a park or attending the cinema.

Using the distance between homes and nearby services such as restaurants, schools, supermarkets and hospitals, American company Walk Score has determined Bunbury has an average walkability index of 30/100, compared to 50 for Perth.

Each suburb of the city was scored individually, with the Bunbury CBD achieving the highest walk score of 67.

East Bunbury (50) was second and Carey Park (40) is the city’s third most walkable suburb.

At the other end of the scale, Millbridge (9), Glen Iris (15) and Usher (18) are the least walkable neighbourhoods in Greater Bunbury.

Bunbury Mayor David Smith said developing activity centres in each of the city’s suburbs — such as Minninup Forum in Withers and the Parks Centre in Carey Park — would lead to an improved walk score.

“Part of the problem with older communities like Bunbury is there used to be a lot of corner shops around providing all kinds of services but over the years they became untenable as a result of competition from major shopping centres,” he said.

“That has reduced walkability and so lately part of the city’s focus has been around those activity centres and increasing residential density around centres to encourage people to live in closer proximity to the services on offer.”