Conclusions

With existing strong and developing connections of East to West, long term plans in the document focus to improve North-South connections to the Illawarra, the Central Coast/ Greater Newcastle regions and Canberra and environs. For more opportunities. Regional transport connections aim to link the internationally important trade gateway establishing North-South connect with - Port of Newcastle, Port Botany and Port Kembla to support import and export of various products.

The Land-Use and Transport vision Greater Sydney Region by NSW Government is listed in Future Transport 2056 – aiming to make the transport system for people and goods to be comfortable and efficient. The three key corridors defined as first steps for different transport activities would be - City-shaping corridors (trunk corridors with services and infrastructure - mass transit, express public transport, road networks), City-serving corridors (higher density corridors around metropolitan and strategic centres to provide high frequency access to cities), and Centre-serving corridors (active transport and local public transport). NorthConnex, a 9km M1 pacific motorway tunnel project, connecting Wahroonga to West pennant hills, establishes a strong connection. It will be the deepest and longest tunnel in the country and is expected to complete by mid-2020.

Even though the plan recognises the need to connect to neighbouring regions (Gosford – Central Coast, Newcastle – Hunter, Wollongong – Illawarra, Goulburn – South East and TableLands, Central West and Orana), for the purpose of better economic development and opportunities, but it lacks to incorporate the specifics and direction, in the plan to achieve it. The regional plans of Illawara and Central coast contain goals and objectives to achieve inter-regional collaboration for strengthening the state as a whole, but this can be seen lacking in GSRP, as the development directions are focused as Sydney-centric and less State based.

An Economic powerhouse of 4.7 million people, Greater Sydney region embraces the landscape of nature, its bushland and its people, to become Australia’s most global city, building on the metropolis of the three districts (Vision of A Metropolis of Three Cities | Greater Sydney Commission, 2020). Greater Sydney Regional plan showcases an indispensable opportunity to deliver this spatial ideology, weaving a plan which integrates infrastructure, economic growth and its people. Unpacking the strategic planning layers for testing the deliverability of GSRP, insightful reflection on the interdependence of components like governance, vision, goals, integration, scale and participation is clearly evident. The formation of an independent city- scale planning commission, running parallel to the state and local interests marks an important step in the metropolitan legislature to achieve an iconic yet realistic future for Greater Sydney. The critical piece of a ’30-minute city’ bold vision with poly centric nodes of employment, economic and social corridors, also strengthens the proposed plan for a modular structure. The structure of plan showcases a high level of consistency in terms of its vision, themes, directions, objectives, actions and strategies. GSRP demonstrates a fair quality of cohesiveness, with high consistency and a clear line of sight. The simple approach and its accessibility is one of its biggest strengths, which dwells on a high level of research, use of evidence, stakeholder considerations and collaboration between different government bodies. Adopting the direction “A well connected city” as its explorational tool, the report also highlights some missed opportunities and lags, especially in terms of its measuring and monitoring, data used , integration with its regional context and assumption based performance measures. Whilst the regional plan clearly provides information about the sources of data used, the knowledge on how to use these sources may not be easy. The measuring of percentage of dwelling to check the deliverability of the plan may also be based on assumptions like metropolitan boundary and waiting time. The relationship of greater Sydney region plan with other state strategies like Transport Strategy 2056 and The State Infrastructure strategy depicts a high level of collaboration and integration. Whilst the framing of objectives is consistent amongst all the plans, the deliverability of priorities for the objectives related to freight network and regional connectivity seem to differ for transport, infrastructure and the regional plan. Though the plan recognises the need to connect to surrounding regions and context, ambiguity is seen where it needs refinement and clarity for a future direction. Vertically, GSRP, the central district plan and the Community strategic plan 2038

follows uniformity and sync between the objectives , strategies, planning priorities and actions for ‘ a well connected city’. Furthermore, this relatability and consistency is an integral part of the internal integration of GSRP, which guides the local plans to follow the same. Encompassing the attributes for a successful plan, Greater Sydney regional plan marks an impeccable step towards dealing with the current urban problems. But many questions still remain. The dominance of economic deliverability highlights an imbalance amongst the themes like sustainability and liveability. Ambiguity is seen, especially in the directions which are focussed on long term goals which might make it difficult to deliver its vision. The aspect of spatial equity has always been a concern for Sydney and a poly centric approach of three cities does try to tackle it. But rather than a third city like Western parkland, existing centres like Blacktown, Liverpool and Penrith may have been overlooked for a sheer spatial scale of development. The new way of governance and excellence in consistency still endures disparity in dealing with issues like health, resilience and wellbeing which gives scope for a better integrated strategic planning framework to mitigate such urban issues for the future.