Once it was paddocks for grazing cows, and orchards dotted the area's rolling hills.

Today, it is Melbourne's fastest growing activity centre outside the CBD, with thousands of new apartments under construction and population growth of 26 per cent.

Whitehorse Council's Jeff Green says Box Hill station works as a shopping centre, but fails as a transport hub. The council wants the state government to fund a business case for Box Hill station's redevelopment. Credit:Simon O'Dwyer

But Box Hill has a big problem, the local Whitehorse Council says: its dysfunctional and jam-packed railway station, and the clapped-out bus interchange above it.

Box Hill was the key place outside the city centre where growth and government investment would be concentrated, the Melbourne Metropolitan Board of Works decided in 1954.