Last backyard in Harrington Park makes way for more housing

It was once the last row of backyards in Sydney — where homes backed on to rolling fields and cows happily grazed on the grass. The Sunday Telegraph returned to Bull Place at Harrington Park 13 years later to find it completely transformed.

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When the Kutle family purchased their block in 2006, it looked like they owned the last house in Sydney.

On one side of their back fence was their garden and yard, on the other was bushland, farms and the dual carriageway of The Northern Rd.

Their home in Bull Place was then at the extremity of the south west Sydney fringe suburb of Harrington Park and their garden flowers would often be eaten by the cows that stuck their noses through the fence line.

Leanne Kutle with Ivy and Lucas in their Harrington Park backyard. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

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The cows are now long gone, there’s another house over the back fence, the Northern Rd resembles a freeway and, save for a small slice of green space, Sydney’s sprawl now continues marching towards the western horizon.

“My geography teacher told me in 1997 to purchase land around here as early as possible because it was all going to be developed. I should have listened to him sooner,” Leanne Kutle said.

“I don’t think that the sprawl should continue further south.”

The Sunday Telegraph this week revisited Bull Place 13 years after it was first photographed.

At the time, fellow residents Sharee and Trevor Head spoke about roads in the area describing it as ``bumper to bumper out there”.

Trevor and Sharee Head with sons Jaidyn and Cooper in their Harrington Park backyard in 2005. Picture: Jeff Darmanin

Thirteen years later it’s the same story.

“I just wonder where all these people come from,” Mrs Head, who still lives with her family in the same suburb but on a different street, said.

“Why are they moving out this way? I know it is cheaper but the infrastructure is not coping.

“It is too much for the roads to take.

“It used to take us ten minutes to get to Prestons and now it takes 20 minutes.”

The last house in Sydney has now moved 11km south to Camden South and the new Bridgewater Estate.

With the state government’s Greater Macarthur Growth Area strategy, however, the last home could well be 25km further south at Wilton by 2040.