Blacktown. Attracting 'high order' jobs

Blacktown City Council hopes to boost employment with a plan which will include a business park, multi-storey office blocks and an investment strategy it hopes will attract thousands of "high-order" jobs. "Our plan is deliberately bold. We seek to create a corridor totalling 17 hectares of land for future commercial office space within a traditional CBD setting," mayor, Alan Pendleton, said. "The Blacktown city centre is an unknown quantum. Presumptions are still being made about its viability that ignores its long-term potential. Our ground=-breaking plan, when fully implemented, has the capacity to provide employment for up to 40,000 new jobs," he said.

Region. Mix a contradiction

The Coalition has put full-fee degrees back on the table, but denied it would seek to reintroduce caps on student places, according to The Australian Financial Review. But University of Western Sydney vice-chancellor, Janice Reid, says the policy mix is a contradiction. “The only way in which that could happen is if universities imposed their own quotas and then created their own full-fee-paying students,” she said in the paper.

Parramatta. Sydney Water wins awards

The International Water Association (IWA) has announced a Global Honour Award to Sydney Water, headquartered in Parramatta, for its Critical Water Mains Strategy and Implementation Project, which will be presented at the 2012 IWA World Water Congress in Busan, Korea in September. Sydney Water and its engineering consultant, Sinclair Knight Merz, took home the top Planning category award for this project in the Asia Pacific region at last month’s Project Innovation Awards in Singapore.

Parramatta. Singapore conference

An outcome of Parramatta City Council’s attendance at the 11th Annual Real Estate Investment World Asia Conference, in Singapore, was the development of 68 new contacts, 39 of which are potential investors, according to Lord Mayor, Lorraine Wearne. “This has enabled council to establish ongoing communication with these parties. Already, we are in the process of arranging follow up meetings with some of these potential investors [in Parramatta],” she said

Region. 'Attributes unrecognised'

The global dominance of images of Sydney that are based in Eastern Sydney, including Bondi Beach, Sydney Harbour and the Opera House, overshadow the identity of Western Sydney, which has an abundance of extraordinary places and spaces with European, Asian and Aboriginal culture and environment significance, according to WSROC’s Future Directions report. “With a few notable exceptions, such as, the Blue Mountains, these attributes remain unrecognised,” the report said.

Liverpool. Costco seeks to sell petrol

US retailer, Costco, is seeking to break into Australia's $15 billion-plus discount petrol business, currently dominated by Woolworths and Coles, by selling its own heavily reduced fuel at prices below those offered via popular supermarket shopper-docket schemes, according to The Sydney Morning Herald. The company has lodged a DA with Liverpool City Council to construct a wholesale and retail warehouse as well as a service station at the Crossroads on Beech Road, Casula. The development is estimated, to cost almost $40 million. Costco plans eventually to open as many as 20 outlets in Australia, according to Petrol Plaza magazine.