By Leesha McKenny and Jacob Saulwick
It was the strategy on which the hopes and dreams of the inner west would be projected, and on which seemingly no expense was spared.
But the vast cost of developing a palatable plan to redevelop Parramatta Road – including almost $2 million for public relations consultants – has amounted to far less than envisioned, with the government husbanding key material to itself.
Tree-lined: An artist's impression of the new Parramatta Road.
New documents reveal the government chose not release a plan to improve public transport along the Parramatta Road corridor, which it stripped out of the strategy it put to the public late last year.
The revitalisation of the maligned transport corridor, billed as a "once-in-a-generation opportunity to finally fix one of Sydney's most-hated roads", was announced in 2013 to coincide with the WestConnex motorway.
But in November, when UrbanGrowth NSW released the long-awaited draft setting out how it would reshape the area with 50,000 new dwellings, the strategy was immediately criticised for lacking detail.
In December, the opposition obtained boxes of documents, tabled in Parliament, which show the lack of information could not be blamed on miserliness.
The internal briefing notes and invoices show that $229,000 was spent on an "interactive" version of the final 44-page draft strategy, embedded with photo galleries and videos, which was never used.
Another set out almost $2.3 million in contracts for public relations consultants – including more than $990,000 for "stakeholder engagement and communications" staff and $186,440 for social media services – as part of public information blitz that was later significantly scaled back.
Labor's planning spokeswoman and Strathfield candidate Jodi McKay lay the blame for the curtailed consultation at the feet of Planning Minister Pru Goward, branding the "waste" as "simply breathtaking".
"Consultants, some charging up to $250 an hour, were put on the payroll, their contracts extended, all for community consultations that never happened," Ms McKay said.
An UrbanGrowth spokeswoman put the final consultants' bill at just shy of $2 million after the "majority" of contracts were terminated early. About half of the 170 events that were planned did not go ahead, she said.
"The cancellation of events meant that consultants were stood down, and costs associated with their attendance at those events not incurred," she said, adding that the interactive "will be repurposed for future consultation".
The documents also describe concrete transport proposals that were never released.
UrbanGrowth was working on a transport plan that included multiple projects, including upgraded commuter car parks at Granville and Ashfield and new bus routes and interchange facilities along Parramatta Road.
But internal emails show both the Premier's office and Transport Minister's office request these projects be removed from the plan.
"The Transport Minister has refused to allow the transport component of the plan to be exhibited and has stated that she will not support exhibition until a full business case is complete," the documents say.
The material demonstrates that UrbanGrowth was aware presenting a strategy for Parramatta Road light on transport detail would expose it to criticism.
A "risk management" appraisal for the strategy said there was a risk "UGNSW is effectively stymied by TfNSW and is unable to meet its mandate in other transport related projects."
The way to control this risk was: "UGNSW needs to draw a line with TfNSW with both its actions and its behaviours."
Transport Minister Gladys Berejiklian said: "The government's success in public transport has been due to our integrated planning approach based on the findings of the NSW Long Term Transport Master Plan."
A spokesman for Ms Goward said: "Labor is dreaming if it thinks the inner west has forgotten the truly 'breathtaking' $500,000,000 it spent on the Rozelle Metro it cancelled without one metre of track laid."