Leamington Avenue Resumption Warning Leaflet - June 2010

Your House may be Resumed, Help Stop It!

You will not have heard about it because it's being kept a secret by the NSW Government's Department of Transport and Infrastructure - but your home may have been identified for compulsory acquisition. It appears that all the houses in Leamington Avenue (and either side of that) may need to be acquired and demolished to make way for rail corridor expansion required as part of constructing the Government's proposed CBD Relief Line. The map on the back shows the impacted properties. (Ref: Hyder Consulting report: "MetroWest—Construction Site Investigation", dated 17 January 2002, and extensive design work by Aurecon (formerly Connell Wagner))

Your house is in an area listed by the City of Sydney Council as a Heritage Precinct and all the properties affected by the project are considered by Council to contribute to the heritage value of the Precinct.

How did this occur?

The Government's proposed CBD Relief Line was first proposed in 1992 (then known as the MetroWest Project). It was abandoned as the Government's preferred option in 2003 after extensive analysis of alternatives indicated that building a new railway through the CBD would produce better results if located under the Pitt Street Corridor. This alternative was announced by Bob Carr in June 2005 (ref: Sydney Morning Herald, 3 June 2005). Importantly this alternative did not require the resumption of any homes in Leamington Ave.

But this Pitt Street route under the CBD was gazumped by the Metro Rail projects announced by the lemma and Rees Governments – and the planners in RailCorp were forced to dust off the only alternative they had left – the discredited plans for the MetroWest Alignment. It was then renamed the "CBD Relief Line" Project.

The Project will Fail to meet its Objectives.

It has been stated that the CBD Relief Line Project will be required to allow the Government's proposed Western Express Services from west of Parramatta to run faster into the CBD, however, all the time savings are achieved west of Redfern and can be achieved on the existing tracks. Furthermore, the new line itself will not allow any additional trains to head towards the city, it will only get existing ones just a little further past Central. This connection to the Western lines was abandoned by State Rail in 2003 because the new line would be located west of Central and Town Hall stations and would not provide any congestion relief for passengers who interchange between train services at these two stations (a stated goal of the project).

The Government's policy of faster trains for Western Sydney can still be achieved without the CBD Relief Line and without the need to resume anybody's homes!

Now that the Government has postponed its plans for a Metro network until at least 2025 there is an opportunity for RailCorp to reclaim the vital Pitt Street route for the new line. This will also allow much needed extra trains from South West Sydney to run into the CBD on a route that will relieve interchange congestion at Central and Town Hall stations.

What can you do about it?

Ask your local member to ask the Minster for Transport and the Premier the following Questions:

1. Is the CBD Relief Line necessary to provide faster trains into the CBD from Western Sydney or can these services be run without the proposed new line?
2. Will the CBD relief line on the western side of the CBD reduce the need for passengers to interchange at Town Hall and Central Stations or will it increase the overall need for passengers to interchange to reach their destinations?
3. Is it true that the Pitt Street route will allow additional services from South Western Sydney whilst also reducing the need to interchange at Central and Town Hall stations, and importantly - will not preclude the operation of faster Trains from the West?
4. Why might my home need to be resumed for the CBD Relief Line Project that has been shown to be incapable of increasing the rail network's capacity or reducing CBD station congestion?

Contact your State Politian and ask these questions

Source: Unsigned Leaflet Destributed in Leamington Avenue June 2010.

See Also Andrew West article : Rail tunnel plan threatens historic homes

See 2005 Map of the Alignment: Metropolitan Rail Expansion Program: Metro Pitt and Metro West indicative protection corridors, October 2005