With Sydney predicted to house more than 7.5 million people by 2050, a major report just released by Infrastructure Partnerships Australia has demanded a real long-term plan from Infrastructure NSW to support this growth.
Infrastructure Partnerships Australia recommended a strategy that protects land corridors, prioritises the right projects and maps out a pathway for sustainable growth with a logical sequence. The report says there are particular needs to resolve complex issues such as the location, timing and sequence of rail, future water sources, electricity generation sites and the location of hospitals and universities.
“Over the past decade, NSW has suffered because of a lack of long-term planning and the result has been a regrettable lack of progress on getting the State’s infrastructure right,” said IPA chief executive Brendan Lyon. “Infrastructure NSW’s strategy is the best opportunity that NSW has to recapture the ambition of John Bradfield’s masterplan of the 1920s and the discipline of the 1951 County of Cumberland Scheme and put in place the right strategy for the next 50 years.”
The County of Cumberland Planning Scheme has been described as ‘the most definitive expression of a public policy on the form and content of an Australian metropolitan area ever attempted.’
It introduced land use zoning, suburban employment zones, open space acquisitions, and the idea of a ‘green belt’ for greater Sydney, while the Main Roads Department supplied plans for an expressway network.
John Bradfield’s 1920s master plan seeded the iconic Harbour Bridge, the City Circle and a passenger rail system that has competently served Sydney for nearly a century.
“Now, with most of the Cumberland Scheme delivered, we need again to look over the horizon and deliver a real and ambitious plan that reshapes the State over the next 50 years,” Lyon said. “Infrastructure NSW will look at projects for the next 20 years, but it must look longer-term in protecting land for potential projects, like High Speed Rail, future motorway corridors like the M9 and metro-style mass transit in Sydney and beyond.”
Lyon added that Infrastructure NSW could show vision by protecting land needed for such future projects, thereby facilitating the state’s growth and development well into the future.
