Planning disaster in Green Square

Mike Baird and the NSW Government have hopelessly failed to address the infrastructure needs of the Green Square Precinct development, the largest urban revitalisation project in the country’s history. 

New City of Sydney Council data predicts over 60,000 residents will be living in Green Square by 2030, almost 10,000 more people than currently expected. 

The development will have an average density of roughly over 20,000 people per square kilometre. By comparison the whole city of Melbourne is a single square kilometre and houses around 8,000 people. 

Thousands of new high density dwellings have been approved without the NSW Government delivering so much as an infrastructure plan for the community beyond a dodgy bus line. 

Nearby schools are already at capacity, and pedestrians complain daily about near misses because nobody in the Government remembered to install pedestrian crossings. 

The Government’s track record on infrastructure planning and delivery is a joke. 

For the last three years I have been warning the Government about a looming disaster in the Green Square Precinct. Well, the Liberals are in their second term and they can’t escape responsibility for the mess they’ve let unfold. 

With such massive growth in population and density, the Government must immediately act and impose a moratorium on further expansion until a serious strategy to deal with their planning failure is prepared.  

Green Square urgently needs dedicated mass-transit infrastructure like an underground metro rail line, or to simply be included in the new Light Rail development. 

They [The Government] ran a few bus routes through the area, but without so much as a dedicated bus lane and traffic at a constant stand-still residents are spending hours commuting short distances. 

And it’s not just transport infrastructure. Amenities like schools and pedestrian crossings weren’t planned either. 

This basic work should have been done years ago and is a sad indictment of the Government’s capacity to competently plan and deliver infrastructure projects in NSW. 

The Government has also disclosed plans for the new St Peters WestConnex interchange, less than three kilometres away, which will only worsen local roads by pouring thousands of extra cars a day onto already congested streets. 

Well, The Government can make a flashy announcement, and sure they sound like nice blokes, but so do used-car salesmen whilst they sell you a dud. There really must be some intellectual rigour shot back into the planning policies of this Government.