Welcome to the future in Sydney’s Bradfield, a city of ambition and expertise

A blue piling rig drills into the ground to dislodge red brown clay at the site of what will be the first building in the first city to be publicly built in Australia in 100 years.

Stephen Winfield, Taylor Construction Group senior site manager at Bradfield City. Picture: John Feder

A blue piling rig drills into the ground to dislodge red brown clay at the site of what will be the first building in the first city to be publicly built in Australia in 100 years.

At the moment, the 115ha grounds of Bradfield look like scorched earth, eucalyptus trees dotting the wire-fenced perimeter of the construction site in Bringelly on the outskirts of west Sydney.

Eventually the city will be part of the vast Aerotropolis surrounding Western Sydney Airport and span more than 11,000ha.

The Western Parkland City Authority (WPCA) predicts there will be 17,000 new jobs in the first city to be built since Canberra as well as about 3000 residents by 2036.

A render of Aerotropolis.

WPCA chair Jennifer Westacott said one of her ambitions was to break down the tribalism of Sydney by luring people from other parts of the city, such as the CBD or the eastern suburbs, to the west. “We will be a magnet for ­people who want to relocate because we’ll be a magnet for industry and jobs and exciting oppor­tunities,” said Dr Westacott, who is also chancellor of Western Sydney University. “So I think that will break down that tribalism.”

The Western Parkland City region is already home to 1.1 million people and includes some of the fastest growing local government areas in Sydney. The population is expected to increase by 360,000 people by 2041, according to the Greater Cities Commission, and the Aerotropolis will create about 200,000 jobs.

GCC Western Parkland City commissioner Billie Sankovic said “The Aerotropolis is anchored by the three existing metropolitan centres of Penrith, Liverpool and Campbelltown”.

“The new city of Bradfield ­really brings those metropolitan centres together around the Aerotropolis and there’s no question that’s Australia’s newest global gateway,” she said.

Next to the piling rig, workers in hi-viz insert steel column starters into 10m deep holes and nearby heavy machinery wheezes as it moves earth around the site.

The site as it is today.

The excavated clay will be used in the walls of Bradfield’s first building, which will be home to ­robots, not people.

Japanese technology conglomerate Hitachi will be the first ­tenant in what the WPCA hopes will become a thriving precinct of advanced manufacturing and research.

The CSIRO is also moving into Bradfield and the science agency will bring its physics, material sciences, astronomy, information technology and data research.

The idea is the city, residential and commercial, will be connected to the world through the Western Sydney Airport, just minutes away on the dedicated Sydney Metro airport line. The new airport is on track to open its gates to domestic, international and cargo flights by 2026 and currently employs around 2700 people, half of whom are locals.

artists’ impressions of structures within the Aerotropolis.

“We are about to enter our busiest period of construction,” said a Western Sydney Airport spokeswoman. “Over the next two years, we will see completion of fit-out of the terminal building, our 3.7km-long runway and taxiways, as well as significant landside civil works.”

Just before the turn off towards the Aerotropolis site on Badgerys Creek Road, a sign says “Welcome to Bradfield: Sydney’s third city.”

One the goals of the Aerotropolis is addressing what Dr Westacott describes as a great unfairness in attitudes and resource allocations towards western Sydney.

Deloitte Australia infrastructure advisory partner Philip Davies said western Sydney had done a lot of the heavy lifting accommodating Sydney’s ballooning population, particularly with migration.

“State, local and federal politicians recognise western Sydney is where the future and the growth is,” he said.