NUATALI Nelmes has urged the NSW government to start seriously planning for the extension of light rail in Newcastle, saying it risked missing out on a “one-time opportunity” to extend the line beyond Hunter Street.
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While the government committed putting together a business plan to extend the line back in 2015, there’s been little movement on the issue since.
And while Transport Minister Andrew Constance says he’s focused on completing the 2.2 kilometre Hunter Street line, at Tuesday’s council meeting Cr Nelmes moved a motion that will see the council push for the formation of a “working party to deliver on this vision” with a number of state agencies.
The motion – which passed despite opposition from Greens Councillor Therese Doyle – will also see the council adopt as its preferred option the light rail network blueprint the government first laid out in its Review of Environmental Factors last year.
It would see the line first extend from Wickham to Broadmeadow, before branching out to Hunter Stadium, Adamstown, Mayfield and eventually Callaghan, Newcastle Airport and a future Glendale Interchange.
The state government committed to a business case for the extension of the city’s light rail as part of its deal with the Shooters and Fishers Party to pass legislation to remove heavy rail from the city back in 2015.
In April the Newcastle Herald reported that Shooters MP Robert Brown believed the government had been given long enough to complete the study, but there’s still been no movement on the issue.
On Tuesday Cr Nelmes said the council wanted to push to ensure the “key transport corridors” that would allow for the extension of the line were protected in the government’s forthcoming greater Hunter metropolitan plan.
“Unless those routes are planned for they're at risk of being developed on,” she said.
Her Labor colleague Declan Clausen agreed, saying two years after the council first endorsed a motion to begin talks with the state government about the need to extend the network it was “disappointing” that little progress had been made.
“This government doesn’t appear to want to put together a plan for light rail and I think that’s foolish,” he said.
“I think they’ll end up with a kind of white elephant [if] there’s no plan to connect it to anywhere else.”
