Matthew Benns: It’s time to sort out Allianz Stadium parking fiasco at Moore Park

What city would design and build an $800 million state-of-the-art stadium and forget to put in a carpark for the people who want to use it, asks Matthew Benns.

Despite the best efforts of our politicians and bureaucrats, Sydney remains a fantastic city and a wonderful place to live.

But if you need an example of how our leaders are doing their level best to muck it up, you need look no further than the parking fiasco unfolding at Moore Park.

What other city in the world would design and build an $800 million state-of-the-art stadium and forget to put in a carpark for the people who want to use it?

Of course that fits into the narrative of Lord Mayor Clover Moore and her Green chums who think we should all travel by bicycle and completely ignores everyone else in the city and the state who also want to visit the stadium.

For years we have been muddling through by parking on the grass outside Allianz Stadium and the Sydney Cricket Ground.

The new $800 million state-of-the-art Allianz Stadium. Picture: Damian Shaw

Enter Cities Minister Rob Stokes, who declared: “Parking on a paddock in the middle of a major city is no longer good enough for motorists or park users.”

No one would disagree with that. But then he pushed through legislation to systematically remove all 2640 parking spaces by the end of 2025.

Currently there are grass parking areas at Moore Park opposite the football stadium. Picture: David Swift

Work on a multi-storey car park next to Allianz Stadium to replace just 1500 of those parking spots has not begun.

Mr Stokes incensed those inside Venues NSW this week by claiming he had no idea that was not enough spots, despite Venues spelling it out in their submission years before and suggesting they amend the plan to make the car park bigger.

But here is the rub.

Any change to the plan will take time, and with the legislated deadline to remove the spots looming there is a chance there could be no parking at all for the Ashes Test in January 2026.

Cities Minister Rob Stokes. Picture: Gaye Gerard

Meanwhile next door, the Entertainment Quarter precinct remains in limbo with the NSW government too frightened to grasp the nettle and work out a deal to end the remaining 24-year lease and put its long-awaited redevelopment out to open tender.

Entertainment Quarter co-chief executive Sam Romaniuk said renewing the lease could provide more carparking in the precinct and allow the Entertainment Quarter to “be part of the solution”.

Currently people who use its carpark, such as the hundreds sitting in their cars after the Elton John concert, cannot get out because traffic leaving the multi-storey is not given a priority or, unbelievably, allowed to turn left after 10pm in case they disturb the inner-city Nimbys who live there.

Remember, these are the same people who complained about the noise from a Rolling Stones concert decades ago and have restricted concerts in our world-class stadium to just six a year.

And no, I am not making this up.

The public transport is good, when it works, and there is also a footbridge. Pity the poor visitor who puts faith in Sydney’s planners and sets off across the $38 million Albert “Tibby” Cotter Walkway thinking it leads somewhere. It doesn’t.

Where they end up is Moore Park west, the exact spot where an underground car park should have been built but wasn’t.

The Albert ‘Tibby’ Cotter walkway … to nowhere.

What is needed is an elected official to come in and sort this mess out.

First up, delay the parking legislation until a solution has been worked out.

This is a jewel in the middle of Sydney’s crown.

A unique entertainment quarter on the old Easter showground site with character-packed buildings that feed into a brilliant, world class sporting complex.

You don’t have to imagine what that is like. Ask anyone who just went to the tennis, Melbourne has already done it.
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