The NSW Government has adopted the Sydney Plan which aims to manage the fast-growing population of Sydney over the next 20 years. The plan focuses on how councils, State Government and the private sector can leverage land use planning.
The Northern Sydney Regional Organisation of Councils (NSROC) has welcomed the plan and said it provides an important opportunity to ensure that the infrastructure required to support growth also involves the infrastructure required to manage waste.
NSROC said successful delivery of Sydney’s housing targets, including the anticipation of 800,000 additional homes over the next 20 years, needs to wholistically consider all infrastructure required to support a growing city. This includes transport, water, sewer, schools, open space, energy, and waste and resource recovery infrastructure.
NSROC President and Willoughby City Council Mayor Tanya Taylor said, “If metropolitan planning is about thinking decades ahead, waste infrastructure is exactly the type of essential service that needs that long-term planning”.
“Sydney’s planned housing growth needs to be supported by the infrastructure that allows those communities to function effectively, including the facilities needed to transfer, recover, process and ultimately manage the waste they generate.”
The NSROC have said that the next step is to ensure the broader planning framework provides Sydney with the right waste facilities, in the right locations with sufficient capacity and operating when they are needed.
“Councils would like to work with the State and the waste sector to bring those pieces together into an infrastructure network that identifies the locations, facility types, capacity, delivery dates and funding required to support Sydney’s growth beyond 2030” Mayor Taylor said.
NSROC is also calling for greater and more transparent reinvestment of Waste Levy revenue into local government and essential waste infrastructure. They are also calling for the NSW Government to build on the Sydney Plan and develop a Greater Sydney Waste Infrastructure Delivery Plan.
