Alphington is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 8 km north-east from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area are the Cities of Darebin and Yarra. At the 2006 Census, Alphington had a population of 4,483.
Alphington is bounded by the Yarra River in the south and the Darebin Creek in the east, and was named after Alphinton in Devon, England.
It is a primarily residential suburb consisting of mixture of 1970s brick veneer, recently-built townhouses as well as period weatherboards. There is also a major paper production plant in the suburb.
Alphington was originally part of the Jika Jika Parish, bounded by Rathmines Street to the west, Darebin Creek to the east, and the Yarra River to the south.
Parks and Open Space
Alphington has tracts of green open space, such as the Darebin Parklands and Alphington Park. The suburb also features the Latrobe Golf Club. The area around Alphington railway station contains a stand of River Red Gum trees, the oldest of which (closest to platform 1) likely pre-dates European settlement. These areas have been revegetated with indigenous plantings by local residents and Council beginning in the late 1990s and are now characterised by vigorous young Red Gum growth and the return of native fauna such as Tawny Frogmouths. Sightings of Echidnas have been reported. The site's proximity to Darebin Parklands increases the likelihood of such habitations into the future.
A notable location in the part of Alphington to the south of Heideleberg road is the revegetated wetlands. This area abuts the Yarra river, and includes the disused modification to the river bank once referred to as the Alphington swimming pool.
The Darebin enterprise centre is located just to the north east of the train station and adjacent to the shallow valley of the Darebin Creek. There is no pedestrian access along the train bridge over the creek. Strangely, the Darebin creek bicycle path terminates beneath this same bridge - preventing what would otherwise seem to be a logical connection to the Yarra river.
Industry
Adjacent to the wetlands to the west and near to the Chandler hiqhway bridge is the Amcor paper recycling factory. Much of the Amcor site appears disused or to function only as storage for paper recycling items. Amcor have been found guilty of polluting Alphington's environment on at least three occasions in 2001 for odour, in 2007 for discharging paper pulp into the Yarra and in 2008, Amcor was convicted for releasing oil into the Yarra from its Alphington plant and fined $80,000. The company announced plans to move from the area. An EPA air monitoring station can be found next to the railway station just to the north.
~ Wikipedia
