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Baird outlines plan to finance WestConnex

NSW Budget commits $1.8 billion over four years to deliver one of Sydney's missing links

June 18, 2013

The New South Wales Government will lean on the private sector to help it finance the WestConnex project, the largest urban transport project in the State’s history.

Handing down the NSW Budget today, Treasurer Mike Baird outlined the Government’s financing plan to deliver the 33km road project.

WestConnex is designed to ease congestion and improve travel times on the city’s major transport routes between Sydney’s west, south west and the Sydney Airport and Port Botany precinct.

The Government will provide $1.8 billion over four years, which includes $111 million in 2013-14, and will ask the private sector to chip in.

“Under this model, the Government would fund the initial sections of the motorway. Private sector capital would then be raised against tolls to fund the next phase of motorway construction and even new projects in the future,” Baird says.

Baird says NSW will also seek federal funding for the project.

“The larger the Commonwealth’s funding for WestConnex and the earlier it is provided, the sooner the entire project can be completed,” he says.

The federal Opposition has pledged $1.5 billion to the WestConnex project, which was a key recommendation stemming from a 2012 Infrastructure NSW report into the State’s infrastructure needs.

The Sydney Motorways Project Office is currently finalising the business case to be delivered to the NSW Government in the coming weeks, which will detail the scope and the timing of phases.

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