Sydney Metro West: Western Sydney business leaders call for station at Camellia
It was the Sydney Metro west station site expected to kickstart an economic hub for more than 130,000 workers, and now business leaders are calling on the government to commit to the plans.
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Western Sydney leaders are demanding the government reconsider its decision to skip a potential boom suburb along the Sydney Metro west project — earmarked to generate more than 130,000 jobs.
Representatives of The Property Council of Australia (NSW), Urban Development Institute of Australia NSW, Urban Taskforce and the Western Sydney Business Chamber came together to call on the NSW Planning to investigate the inclusion of Camellia as a Metro station location.
The bid for a Camellia stop comes after blueprints for the billion-dollar project were placed on exhibition, revealing 154 homes and businesses would face the wrecking ball for the massive transport link.
Urban Taskforce chief Tom Forrest said all major industry groups and Parramatta Council agree that “the NSW Government has made a big mistake” when bypassing Camellia.
“The government completed the analysis of Metro West before it had committed the funding,” he said. “They didn’t redo their analysis when the funding was committed and now it is not relevant.”
He said the government had a perfect opportunity to redevelop the asbestos-ridden Camellia site, because “the metro will already be tunnelled underneath it.”
Mr Forrest was joined by Property Council of Australia director Ross Grove, UDIA NSW chief Steve Mann and Western Sydney Business Chamber executive David Borger in a submission to the Metro west plan, obtained by NewsLocal.
“The distance between Sydney Olympic Park and Parramatta is approximately seven
kilometres,” the representative said .“It is highly unusual for metro rail lines to have such long distances between stations and we believe it would be a significantly missed opportunity to deny the location of an additional metro station west of Sydney Olympic Park at Camellia.”
Analysis commissioned by the Camellia Landholders Alliance revealed a metro station could be delivered with an addition 200 metres of tunnelling, meanwhile research by Value Advisory Partners found the suburb has suffered a 92 per cent drop in employment opportunities.
The submission said a station at Camellia had the potential to kickstart a massive 131,000 jobs alongside a new “mixed-use employment and residential hub” for smart jobs.
Parramatta Mayor Cr Bob Dwyer also pleaded with Premier Gladys Berejiklian to address the “current under-utilisation” of Camellia as part of the Place-based Infrastructure Compact Pilot for the Greater Parramatta and Olympic Peninsula Area. The draft plan proposes to exclude Camellia from a land-use change.
A Transport for NSW spokesman said Metro undertook “comprehensive analysis of including a station at both Rydalmere and Camellia as part of the strategic planning for Sydney Metro West” — blaming flood protection requirements and the impacts associated with the masterplan for the precinct as to why it was scrapped.
“Significant remediation works would have been required which would have impacted construction timing,” he said.
The spokesman said a station at Rydalmere was ruled out given its distance from the proposed railway alignment and the additional time it would add to the journey between Parramatta and the Sydney CBD.