Profile of Berala

I apologise in advance for I don't have any photos for my suburb. There's a map at the bottom but.

The suburb of Berala is in the Inner Suburban Area of the Metropolitan Area of Sydney. It is part of the Auburn Local Government Area, population of approximately 51000 residents. (council area not suburb). The suburb is approximately bounded by Kibo Rd on the south, Park Rd to the West, Vaughan St and London Rd to the north and Joseph St to the east. It is sandwiched between Auburn, Regents park & Lidcombe. It is approximately 21 Km west of Sydney's CBD and 5 Km south west of Olympic Park.

The suburb is relatively flat except for the area around Kibo Rd. Whiting Avenue is thought to be the highest street in the Regents Park-Berala Area. From here you can see the Sydney CBD. You can also see Stadium Australia quite clearly from the Jenkins St Bridge. The area used to be just swamp land, the name 'Berala' coming from the aboriginal name of a type of duck which used to be found in the area.

The suburb although mostly low-density housing is increasing in density particularly around The north-west side of the railway line where townhouses & other types of medium density buildings are.

The Auburn Local Government Area is one of the most diverse in Sydney, with 52% of its population born overseas and 32% born in a non-English speaking country. Most of the people around here are of Middle Eastern or Asian descent. I myself am Chinese-Vietnamese.

The suburb was subdivided in the 50's and little had changed since the 70s. The Berala CBD is mostly along Woodburn Rd. We have a REAL supermarket (beat that Rego) and a news agency, fruit market, pub, asian groceries, bottle shop and a bunch of other stuff. The only thing lacking in Berala is a bank ever since Commonwealth Bank (CBA) closed its branch last year. We also have a video shop but at $5.50 for a new release I wouldn't exactly say it was cheap.

Our road system, no matter how willy nilly it has been planned, is actually quite all right, considering back in the 50's the grid was they way to go, not cul-de-sacs. Okay, so the roundabouts aren't my favourite but they're all right. We only have two sets of traffic lights so that's good. I have a complaint about the roundabout at Jenkins St and Regent St, its too bloody big!! How may cars have fallen victim to it only god knows. Plus the buses don't even bother turning, they just run right over it.

The main routes of congestion are Park Rd and Woodburn Rd although these road rarely experience any sort of jam anyway. Vaughan St is quite busy though & Joseph St sure is. After all Joseph St is Metroad Route 6 and is a dual carriageway 6 lanes wide (altogether, not each carriageway). Its still free flowing. The CBD is equipped with two car parks; the commuter/CBD car park & the pub one. Oh and did I mention the railway station?

Our suburb, although lacking in entertainment has some decent parks and the nearest cinema is in Lidcombe at Reading Cinemas, along Parramatta Road. For all your shopping needs go to Bankstown Square, 15 minutes away or Westfield Parramatta (the largest shopping centre in Australia in (1996-98), 20 minutes away.

If you're planning to move into Berala, good on ya. It is a high in demand suburb despite the Auburn LGA having the highest break & enter rate in Sydney. At $260,000 you could get a decent 3 bedroom house with garage and on a nice block of land. And we have our own train station and were 15 minutes to Bankstown. Only 40 minutes on the train to the city.