HERITAGE Victoria has authorised the dismantling and removal of a ramshackle Williamstown home which was added to the Victorian register just two years ago for being Melbourne's oldest house.

The Aitken Street site where the house has sat since it was built in about 1842, is expected to make way for a townhouse and apartment project.

VANDALS have damaged the already dilapidated Williamstown house at the centre of a conservation row (and residential development site) in Melbourne’s south-west.
 
After a complaint by the Hobsons Bay City Council, Heritage Victoria has ordered the property’s owner, Hoppers Crossing pensioner Gary Page erect a new fence around the crumbling home – which occupies a corner of an 839 square metre site his family has owned since 1964 and used as storage for a family business.
 
Mr Page listed the Aitken Street site for sale in April to help pay his living costs, after the global financial crisis saw his superannuation value plummet.