As thousands more apartments are planned for their suburbs, a Sydney playgroup about to be kicked out of its second building in a fortnight has begged for more community space to be saved or created.
The Sydney Creative Play has been using the old Canterbury Bowls Club to hold weekly play sessions for the past two weeks.
Its organiser, Sharon Baldwin, said before that, they were meeting at a warehouse across the road on Close Street.
"We lost that space due to a development that's happening there so we thought we'd lucked out when we moved into this space only to find out just two days ago that we were going to lose it again," she said.
They're losing access to the site because Sydney Metro is taking over the lease, to store construction materials and set up offices as it upgrades Canterbury Station.
The $12.5 billion Sydney Metro includes the Southwest Project, which will upgrade and convert all 11 stations between Sydenham and Bankstown to metro standards.
It will be a standalone train line, operating separately from the existing route, with more services during peak hour.
To go with it, the Government has an urban renewal plan for the Sydenham to Bankstown corridor, which includes 30,000 new apartments — enough to house 100,000 people.
One of the mothers in the playgroup, Katrina Byrne said the State Government should be allocating more green space given the projected population growth of the area.
"They're building all these giant high-rises all along the corridor," she said.
"High-density living is great, it's affordable, it's close to train stations, that's excellent, but we haven't had a council vote in years and now they're taking this one little space off us."
The local council was amalgamated last year; it won't have a mayor or councillors until elections are held in September.
Nonetheless, Canterbury-Bankstown Council has still issued a statement voicing its concerns about the Government's vision for the area.
"While the investment in the Metro is a wonderful thing for our city, it is not the only piece of infrastructure required to support the suggested growth," it said.
"The plans indicate more than 30,000 dwellings are proposed to be built along the rail line, but the only new open space suggested is a linear cycleway."
