Provision of Professional Services in Peri-urban Spaces

Edgar Burns, Sociology, La Trobe University

Beyond the edge: Australia’s first national peri-urban conference 1-2 October 2013, Melbourne

veterinary professional services in the peri-urban space

1. Veterinary work not obvious in planning and urban

design

2. Food security - legal veterinary powers in disease

outbreaks

3. Peri-urban veterinary practice An instance of professional service delivery

It in turn, helps reflection on how urban change is managed or just happens

Introduction:

Older veterinary distinctions

Terms: • Farm animals v domestic animals (pets)

• Large animal v companion animals (pets)

Themes: • Rural animals and farm costs v income • High value equine work • Also, herd level action v individual pet care valued very

differently • Men veterinarians, community involvement, hugely

changed

Peri-urban Melbourne

Peri-urban veterinary practice

1. Are there veterinary clinics in the peri-urban space?

2. If so, are there features we can associate with that location?

3. What triggers to ‘larger’ questions of land-use, service provision, adapting to population-residential change?

Veterinary clinics in the peri-urban space?

1. Used Vic State Gov Planning & Community Development definition for Melbourne

» Regional municipalities excepted Geelong

2. Initial visiting intention limited to website self-representation of veterinary practices

3. Vet practices range from distinctively rural orientation to urban focus, and hybrid forms

Indirect counting veterinary activity in Melbourne peri-urban area

• 2/3 Australians own pets – Hypothesis: higher in peri-urban?

• Approx 50 veterinary practices

• > 100 qualified veterinarians

• > 100 veterinary nurses

• Another 25+ admin staff

The evolving space is

interesting

Veterinary features of peri-urban location?

• Rural-facing or urban-facing? • Riding the tide of peri-urban change • Old practices – new practices • Two or more clinics, combined, in some instances • Visiting specialists

• In the peri-urban space • Equine practice - contemporary best fit? • Plus other species, intensified animal properties (alpaca) • Animal acupuncture, organic pet-food

• New practices, different relationship to existing communities

West Gippsland Veterinary Centre

Old Sale Road Veterinary Service Newborough

Inverloch Veterinary Services

Alexandra Veterinary Clinic

A number of veterinary practices have no/ or minimal web presence, some acting just as a digital brochure

Golden Plains Equine, Meredith

Speciality work

Re-purpose existing buildings or dedicated premises

Brook St, Sunbury

Meeting an urban/ lifestyle market

Veterinary and ‘larger’ peri-urban issues

1. Veterinary clinics in the peri-urban space as nodes for epidemics or bio-security at specific points of human-animal interface

2. Feral and semi-owned cats, and dog populations – rats... from urban sprawl in the peri-urban area; foxes; native species

3. Food security – not fruit, carrots and horticulture, but livestock, intensive or otherwise

4. Veterinary clinics as small businesses populating, sim-city-like, the peri-urban zone. The dual rural-urban orientation of the veterinary function, though not necessarily in individual practices

Other players than veterinarians

• Councils

• Farming supply

• Pet supply

• Livestock groups

• Clubs, trainers, agistment

Veterinarians as significant employers

Multi-site practices business extension

Consciously facing urban and rural

High-level technology and service provision

Variety of economic effects

1. Wages and local economic multiplier effect 2. Differences in employment in relation to general

farming activity 3. Today women veterinarians too 4. Veterinary nurses and other workers 5. Not just ‘breaking edge’ town/country but further-

back rural economic influence 6. High-tech equipment; group practice; o/heads 7. Purpose built clinics/ local property investment 8. Economic variations around Melbourne circumference

Insights from veterinary change?

• Existing functions, extended or modified

• Specialist functions, eg equine, dental

• Land-use initiatives in specialist animals

• Newcomer vets - companion animal focus

• Bottom-up initiatives rather than planned » Not arguing an ‘invisible hand’ but asking what facilitates

service provision?

• Avoiding ‘good/bad’, nostalgia, but alert to land use, a finite resource

Conclusion

• Veterinary service provision continuously adjusting

• Peri-urban setting only one factor • Land-use intensification • Companion animal increase

• Present discussion assumes further peri-urban expansion

• World shortage of rural veterinarians – is peri-urban location a key?

• May one day stop or change, affecting land use, human and animal populations