"The City of Ryde welcomes the NSW Government's announcement today that they support the protection of the entire site known as TG Millner for the purpose of additional public open space for the rapidly increasing population of the Macquarie Park Innovation District.
"Public open space is critical to all current and future residents, students, and workers that will be living and working in one of Australia's most important economic precincts - the Macquarie Park Innovation District.
"The health and wellbeing of our community is at the heart of Council's efforts to protect, enhance, and increase public open spaces across the City, particularly as we continue to encourage the NSW Government to strike the right balance on delivering more housing alongside employment and critical infrastructure and services.
"The City of Ryde's fight to maintain TG Millner Fields as essential open space has now been vindicated by the NSW Government's decision to include the expansion and embellishment of TG Millner in the final package of documents as a part of the Macquarie Park Transit-Orientated Development Accelerated Precinct, which were released this morning.
"Throughout the rezoning proposal process, the City of Ryde has been advocating for the immediate delivery of, and funding for, increased open space, critical infrastructure and services in and around the Macquarie Park Innovation District.
"There are very few opportunities remaining throughout the City of Ryde where quality and well-located open space to the scale required for active recreation can be set aside for the community's use. The TG Millner Fields are well located in proximity to the Macquarie Park Innovation District and is of a size and scale that allows for a growing community to have ample opportunity for quality space for active recreation.
"In recognising the existing pre-planned growth of the City of Ryde, Council's 2021 Open Space Future Provision Strategy identified the need for an additional 13 sporting fields. Further demand for open space caused by today's accelerated TOD announcement means that an extra 8 new senior sporting fields are required – meaning our City needs a total of 21 new sporting fields.
"In addition, Mayor Clr Brown has previously written to the Premier for New South Wales, as well as the Minister for Sport, the Minister for Local Government, and the Minister for Planning and Public Spaces to encourage them to provide the funding as promised by the Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure to ensure the purchase and future management of the TG Millner Fields.
"Clr Brown said the immediate delivery of public open space in the City of Ryde was a critical issue that needed to be urgently addressed by the NSW Government if it was to strike the right balance between its ambitious housing plans and the provision of crucial local infrastructure required to support a booming population.
