President of Business Wyong Matt Lusted is very hopeful and excited that projects in the Northern Growth Corridor that have been slow moving for a long time will now take off following the election of a NSW Labor Government.
Lusted said that with local Labor MPs re-elected to the three northern electorates – Wyong, The Entrance and Swansea – they now had opportunities in government which could only be a good thing for the northern end of the Coast and he hoped they could cut through the red tape.
“The one to focus on is the upgrade of the Pacific Hwy through Wyong which is effectively already in train but we’re just after start dates,” he said.
“From there we’d like to see a time commitment on the link road from Wyong to Warnervale.”
Business Wyong, the regional Chamber of Commerce, is wasting no time to engage the newly elected Federal and State Labor Governments and has already invited the Treasurer Jim Chalmers to visit and as soon as Premier Chris Minns announces his full ministry, they’ll be getting an invitation too.
“We just want to see some action, we have plans upon plans upon plans, but what we need is the government to say, right, this is the way we’re pushing forward,” Lusted said.
“Look at what the Libs did in western Sydney over the past 12 years – what they did out there was quite incredible, there’s some great examples – and I would love to see if the new government could actually do that on the northern end of our Coast, everywhere from around Warnervale to the Wyong Employment Zones, incorporating Darkinjung lands, around Bushells Ridge Rd and all the way through to Doyalson.”
Lusted said what was needed was a set timeframe for when land would be released and developed.
Business Wyong is looking at the Northern Growth Corridor as a whole but Lusted says that even in the Central Coast Regional Plan 2041 “there’s a few things they’ve got wrong”.
He said that straight away he was unnerved by the Plan referring to the growth corridor as being between Tuggerah and Wyong rather than Tuggerah to Warnervale.
“It made me think that they’re not going to fund the link road, a four-lane highway basically from Wyong Golf Course to Warnervale then linking to the education precinct so that northern area can expand,” he said.
“That’s a big thing – we need the Pacific Hwy upgrade through Wyong and the link road to form the spine for the Northern Growth Corridor to actually grow the area and develop it properly.”
Lusted also said NSW Planning got it the wrong way around in the Plan by naming Tuggerah as a regional city and Wyong only as a strategic centre.
“Wyong should be the regional city as it’s identified as an administrative hub for the northern end of the Coast; it’s an established city with all the services including bus and rail transport interchange with plenty of parking,” he said.
“It would be smart if (the government) just picked the low-hanging fruit and got some successes by building on what is already here … millions upon millions of dollars is being spent doing this massive Pacific Hwy upgrade, new bridges, rail interchange, the whole lot.
“Why wouldn’t you change the zonings on a Council map so you can actually build housing around it?”
Lusted said Wyong was a classic example where the zonings and densities around rail and transport hubs could be changed to allow multi-level housing and provide incentive to local developers for lot amalgamation, heritage offsets and so on.
“We need to go up, and that means we can provide cheaper accommodation, and in a centre that already has all the services,” he said.
Lusted said he’d like to see the new State Government continue the commitment with the Six Cities Commission, of which Central Coast is a part, and that it needed to hold Transport for NSW accountable regarding the fast train from Newcastle to Sydney.
“There’s been talk for too long and the route has been mapped out since the early 2000s but they need to identify the one or two stations on the Central Coast for this new future fast train access,” he said.
“We’re declaring that station should be at Tuggerah because when you look at the 2041 Regional Plan it could link with the whole Bateau Bay/The Entrance area with a fast bus service straight through to Tuggerah.”
Sue Murray