Finalise light rail extension route before Dairy Farmers Corner towers go up

NO WAY THROUGH: The proposed redevelopment of Dairy Farmers Corner, seen from Tudor Street.

THROUGHOUT the long years of debate over the Newcastle rail line, two major reasons were given for replacing heavy rail with light rail.

One was a perceived need to remove the fenced track "barrier" between the foreshore and the city centre. The second justification was that a permanent light rail - as opposed to movable bus routes - would become a big driver of large-scale high-rise development.

Overall, both aims have been achieved.

At the same time, Hunter Street was decimated as a retail destination by the two years of light rail construction, and was only finding its feet again when COVID came along, making it all but impossible to judge the light rail's value as public transport, beyond the obvious observation that the service is often almost empty of passengers.

READY TO RISE: Dairy Farmers Corner as it appeared in a Herald article about its then owner, McCloy Group, putting it on sale in October last year.

Amid accusations the light rail was a "tram to nowhere", the NSW government promised to investigate extending the route west out of the city along Tudor Street and into Hamilton and beyond.

There seems little chance of that happening in the short term, but as Newcastle Herald columnist Bradley Perrett repeatedly pointed out in his series of articles on the Hunter's future transport needs, prospective routes need to be identified and protected, even if their use is potentially decades away.

As we report today, the new owners of Dairy Farmers Corner say they have sold more than $50 million worth of apartments in an initial marketing campaign for their $110 million "twin towers" proposal.

At the same time, Transport for NSW is still looking at four possible extension routes of out of the Wickham interchange.

Three of these go through the Dairy Farmers site.

ONE END: The eastern terminus of the Newcastle Light Rail at Pacific Park.

The fourth would be a detour of sorts, heading west along the rail line and then turning south towards Tudor Street via Selma Street and Gordon Avenue.

The indirect route need not be a bad thing, and would then open this area up for higher-value, track-side development.

But if TfNSW intends the light rail extension to go through Dairy Farmers Corner, it needs to chose and protect a corridor before the developers, the Thirdi Group, proceed any further.

Thirdi should have known of this possibility before they bought.

Without greater certainty of a route out of Wickham, the light rail risks becoming the isolated white elephant that its critics predicted: and that would do the city no good at all.

ISSUE: 39,727

SKY HIGH: Another mock-up of what the towers would look like. Proximity to the transport interchange, the curved-ended building behind it, is obvious.