These suburbs may get a metro station. Trouble is, the tunnels are already built

Premier Chris Minns has refused to rule out building an extra railway station at Silverwater or Newington for the $25 billion Metro West rail line despite giant tunnel boring machines almost passing those suburbs as they close in on their destination at Olympic Park.

Resistance from some Australian Turf Club members is threatening to scuttle plans to turn Rosehill Racecourse into a “mini-city” of 25,000 homes and the site for a station on the Metro West line between Parramatta and the CBD.

The Australian Turf Club owns Rosehill Racecourse near Parramatta.Credit: Rhett Wyman

Minns would not rule out the possibility of a station at Silverwater or Newington, saying he first wanted to see the outcome of the turf club’s unsolicited proposal for the 60-hectare racecourse.

“If that is endorsed by the members, and it’s a deal that the government can sign on to, then we would put an extra metro station there [at Rosehill],” he said. “If that doesn’t go ahead, then we’ll look to other sites.”

Two boring machines have almost tunnelled past Silverwater and Newington on their journeys to Olympic Park, leaving concrete-lined twin tunnels in their wake. One machine is less than a kilometre from the Olympic Park station site.

Minns said the government believed it could be flexible about extra stations while managing a complex engineering challenge. “We’d love to do it in a sequential way, but it’s not going to be perfect. The reason for that is the land use challenges along the route,” he said.

Asked whether he was concerned a revolt within the turf club would scupper the plans for Rosehill, Minns said the decision was in the hands of the 11,000 members but that information such as the revenue stream for the club and future housing had yet to be tabled.

Coalition transport spokeswoman Natalie Ward said the cost to retrofit new stations within the existing alignment of the Metro West line would be “very expensive” and that it would add to the construction risk for taxpayers who deserved to know the full costs and benefits of the decision.

“If the government is doing this properly, I’d expect to see something for these new metro stations in the upcoming budget,” she said.

Transport and planning consultant Alex Gooding agreed it would be expensive to retrofit stations around recently built tunnels for Metro West. “It’s unfortunate that the decision was not made to fill the gap between Olympic and Parramatta earlier in the planning process,” he said.

Transport Minister Jo Haylen has previously played down the chances of an extra Metro West station being built at Silverwater or Newington, saying the government was focused on Rosehill.

The uncertainty over Rosehill comes as the government sets aside $2 billion over the next five years for construction of the second stage of Parramatta’s light rail line. The upcoming state budget will include $73 million for enabling works and a revised business case for the project.

The 10-kilometre second stage runs from Camellia to Olympic Park via Rydalmere, Ermington and Melrose Park. It will have 14 stops.

Initial work on building a 320-metre bridge over the Parramatta River between Melrose Park and Wentworth Point for the line will begin later this year.

The first stage of the light rail line between Westmead and Carlingford via Parramatta’s CBD is expected to open to passengers in August.

Minns declined to reveal when the second stage would open, saying the time and the cost of the project had to be finalised in the updated business case.

Transport for NSW last year estimated that the second stage would cost $3.9 billion, on top of the fully funded $2.875 billion for the first stage, which blew out by $475 million in 2022. It puts the cost of the entire line, which will span 22 kilometres, at $6.8 billion – the equivalent of two CBD and south-east light rail projects.

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