Premier promises end to building suburbs with no infrastructure

One of north-west Sydney’s most congested roads will be expanded at a cost of more than $700 million, as Premier Chris Minns says the state government has learnt from its previous mistakes of creating new suburbs without proper infrastructure.

Richmond Road is the only road in and out of Marsden Park, a new suburb at the centre of Sydney’s north-west sprawl and whose residents have complained about a lack of access to transport, schools and healthcare. The road will also bear the load of newly approved housing developments.

Work has commenced on several kilometres of the road, which is being widened from four to six lanes, with a bridge to be built over Bells Creek, and a new flyover bridge to be constructed from the M7 north off-ramp to Richmond Road. Around Elara Boulevard, the road will be widened from two to four lanes, with the option to expand to six later.

Minns, speaking at a press conference in the suburb on Monday, said Sydney could not continue to build suburbs like Marsden Park.

“I know that the houses came in before this critical infrastructure,” he said. “We’re trying to make, as quickly as possible, a change to make life easier for these communities, and perhaps more important than that, learn from the lessons of the past … When we put communities in, [they need to include] schools, transport and hospitals.

“It’s more expensive and takes longer to do it after the communities have been established,” he said, adding the government will focus on providing infrastructure “before the housing appears”.

NSW Roads Minister Jenny Aitchison said “there are parts of western Sydney, particularly in this area, that are rural roads that were never designed to carry the load they are”, and that the project was being conceived as part of the broader road network, not “a single road-widening project”.

Minns said the “central point about the stresses and strains on infrastructure for western Sydney” was “the leading reason why our, I guess, signature policy around housing is for urban density”.

“It is for more housing closer to the city, so we’re not just constantly in this situation where we’re adding another street to the western fringe of Sydney every week, and then another road, and then another street and then another road,” he said. “Sydney’s got to grow in a balanced way.”

Robyn Preston, the Liberal member for Hawkesbury, arrived uninvited at the press conference.

She claimed the government was only renewing roads that sat in Labor electorates, and the upgrades would only serve to push traffic congestion further back into her electorate.

“Great that this is happening, I applaud it, that’s why I wanted to come along,” she said. “I didn’t get the memo.”

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