What is the Metropolitan Strategy?

The NSW Department of Infrastructure Planning and Natural Resources is developing a strategic plan for Metropolitan Greater Sydney.

By combining the former departments of planning, transport and natural resources, the Department takes a broad approach to land use and transport and involves a wide range of stakeholders.

Development of the Strategy involved establishment of a reference panel and a number of working groups which involve many people who worked on the Warren Centre project.

There is no doubt that trying to pull together a wide range of disparate ideas and issues is difficult, so the Strategy should not and cannot be just a list of projects that the government believes should be built now. It must represent an on-going process.

To ensure a successful Strategy, all major factors are being covered, such as environment, government structure, higher education, financial, transport, land use and governance issues. Community and stakeholder involvement is also a major part of the process.

A major Futures Forum has already been held and individual meetings are under way in local areas throughout the metropolitan area. The Minister, Craig Knowles, and the Director General, Jennifer Westacott, attended most of these meetings.

The Warren Centre’s Sustainable Transport for Sustainable Cities provides an ideal reference document for this project. In addition, it has helped to inform major initiatives such as the Ministry of Transport’s Parry and Unsworth reviews

Members of the Warren Centre team have provided comment on various aspects of the plan. The most significant aspects raised include:

o        creation of six largely independent regions within Sydney (each served by at least one regional centre, and possibly two or three ) – the six cities of Sydney – and empowering them to develop their own destiny as part of the Metropolitan Strategy

o        a more concentrated move to encourage mixed use development that optimises the opportunity to walk and reduces the need to travel by car

o        inclusion of a very high speed train network in the action plan

o        development of performance measures targeted to the outcomes sought, with results independently reported to the community.

We believe a critical aspect of a new process is to establish an independent body to monitor progress towards the vision for Sydney, towards achieving a sustainable future.

To this end, The Warren Centre recently launched foundation membership for the 10,000 Friends of Greater Sydney.

Friends will:

1.       Produce an annual scorecard on attainment of the vision for Sydney through the Metropolitan Strategy and report this to the community.

2.       Respond to specific issues raised that may impinge on the vision for Sydney and its transport system.

3.       Provide leadership in relevant areas by developing and implementing activities that will better enable implementation of the vision.

4.       Engage the community through membership of 10,000 Friends and regular two-way communications

5.       Pursue implementation of the Sustainable Transport in Sustainable Cities project vision for Sydney through involvement in the Metropolitan Strategy with the Department of Infrastructure, Planning and Natural Resources and progressively extend that involvement to energy, water, waste and biodiversity planning. 

As at 4 November 2004, the following organisations had agreed to become Foundation Members of 10,000 Friends of Greater Sydney:

Bovis Lend Lease
Committee for Sydney
Department of Infrastructure, Planning and Natural Resources
GHD
John Holland
NRMA
Macquarie Infrastructure Group
Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority
TTF Australia (Tourism & Transport Forum)
Transfield Holdings
The University of Sydney

If you would like to consider foundation membership of 10,000 Friends of Greater Sydney, please contact Richard Walker on 0419 617 510 or r.walker@eng.usyd.edu.au. 

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