Tony Abbott gets cracking on a $3.5b roads plan for Western Sydney and Badgerys Creek

A ROADS plan for Western Sydney will form the centrepiece of a federally funded infrastructure package. BADGERYS LATEST

A $3.5 billion roads plan for Western Sydney, including a new four lane motorway leading directly to the doorstep of Sydney’s second airport at Badgerys Creek, will form the centrepiece of a $10 billion federally funded national ­infrastructure package.

The Daily Telegraph can today reveal the largest ever infrastructure plan for the West will accompany the $2.5 billion privately funded 24- hour international airport 51km west of the CBD.

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Prime Minister Tony Abbott will this morning unveil the roads component when he visits the site of the new airport, which he wants under construction as early as 2016. The major road plan will include:

● A NEW $1.25 four-lane motorway from the M7 to the Northern Rd alongside Elizabeth Drive;

● $1.6 billion upgrade to Northern Rd to four lanes from Narellan to M4;

● $500 million upgrade to Bringelly Road to four lanes from Camden Valley Way to the Northern Rd;

● NEW interchanges connecting Northern Road and Elizabeth Drive with arterial roads; and

● $200 million for local road upgrades;

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The package will be funded in an 80/20 split between federal and state governments.

The upgrades will provide the missing links within the Western Suburbs, reduce travel times and build capacity for a region of two million people that is expected to grow by ­another million people in the next 20 years.

It will be overseen by the establishment of a Western Sydney Infrastructure Taskforce to be led by the Assistant Minister for Infrastructure Jamie Briggs and NSW Minister for Roads Duncan Gay.

But the roads plan is only part of a bigger infrastructure plan to be announced before the budget, including a $3 billion rail line connecting Liverpool to Penrith via a tunnel with a terminal beneath the new airport precinct.

As part of the deal between Mr Abbott and NSW Premier Barry O’Farrell, the state government would fund the rail projects using funds from the further privatisation of state-owned assets.

The Daily Telegraph ­understands the federal government is also tipped to announce the possible injection of a further $2 billion in extra funding via a loan facility on top of the $1.5 billion in cash it has already committed to fast track construction of the Westconnex motorway.

Mr Abbott confirmed the airport is forecast to generate 4000 jobs during construction, 35,000 jobs by 2035 in associated employment, growing to 60,000 eventually.

Federal Cabinet approved the airport construction yesterday, and the accompanying infrastructure plan.

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While some Labor MPs are bitterly opposed to the project, Opposition Leader Bill Shorten was the first to publicly back the second airport at Badgerys Creek — in The Daily Telegraph last month.

REACTIONS FROM POLITICIANS TO BADGERYS CREEK AIRPORT

Mr Abbott said he wanted it to be a jobs generator in the West, claiming it would add another $24 billion to the ­national economy.

Treasurer Joe Hockey said: “This will be the major driver of growth in Western Sydney for the 21st century.”

But Mr Abbott said the much needed new roads for the West must come first — and be finished before the first planes take to the air by the mid 2020s.

Writing exclusively for The Daily Telegraph today, Mr Abbott said: “This is the largest project ever undertaken in Western Sydney with the new airport expected to see its first flight in the mid-2020s,

“Building a new airport also means major road and transport upgrades in Western Sydney. Road and transport links must be ready and operating long before the airport is complete. Roads first, airport second is our approach.

“The people of Western Sydney are smarting from Bob Carr’s failed policies that saw population first, roads second. We will get the roads completed first so that the airport can operate from day one.”

The taskforce would consider further upgrades to local bottlenecks such as Mamre Rd, Prospect Highway, Moorebank Precinct and the Werrington Arterial.

Mr Abbott said yesterday the airport, which had been first flagged in 1965 but killed off in 1996 by John Howard over fears of the electoral backlash to aircraft noise, was “long overdue”.

“In fact, people started talking about the need for Sydney to have a second when the Deputy Prime Minister and I were still at school,” Mr ­Abbott said following a Cabinet meeting to finally approve the project.

“So it is a long, overdue ­decision which, to be honest, has been shirked and squibbed by successive governments for far too long.”

Deputy Prime Minister and Infrastructure Minister Warren Truss said: “Western Sydney is already a community of about two million people and it will be the place where much of Sydney’s growth occurs in the future.

“There are no other cities in Australia or, for that matter, most other parts of the world, with a population of two million or more that do not have an airport.”

NAME OUR NEW JEWEL IN THE CROWN

SYDNEYSIDERS are being called upon to help name the new jewel in Sydney’s crown.

With no indication of a name already determined for the new airport at Badgerys Creek, The Telegraph wants you to put your thinking cap on and lodge your best pick.

Perhaps you might like to see it named after an early pioneer like John Macarthur, who settled the nearby Camden region?

Or should naming rights should go to former NSW Governor General and Victoria Cross recipient Sir Arthur Roden Cutler VC?

Could we one day be flying out of the John Bradfield International Airport, named after the engineer who oversaw the design and construction of the Sydney Harbour Bridge?

The Daily Telegraph wants to hear your suggestions for the name of Sydney’s second airport at Badgerys Creek.