4.1.2  Corridor protection

A key benefit of long-term strategic infrastructure planning is the opportunity to identify and protect land corridors to accommodate future projects like rail lines, motorways and freight routes. Protecting sites for key nodes in the infrastructure networks, such as intermodal freight terminals, is equally important.

As highlighted by Infrastructure Partnerships Australia76 in its report on corridor protection in 2010 , and the Australian Government's High Speed Rail Study77 in 2013, the implications of inaction in this area are not benign. As our cities grow, the absence of protected routes for transport and other linear infrastructure will reduce constructability, increase capital costs and could render otherwise beneficial projects uneconomic.

Without effective corridor protection, there is a significant risk that major new projects will have to be constructed in tunnels. This would add materially to their cost (often by five to 10 times the cost of a surface option). The requirement for tunnels would also be likely to increase whole-of-life costs.

Work commissioned by Infrastructure Australia also highlights the fact that with rising urban land prices, material cost savings can be achieved by acquiring corridors early and, where necessary, providing for an interim land use that also generates a rental stream.78

Between the 1950s and 1980s, a number of state governments had well-developed and successful corridor protection practices in place. Many of the projects successfully developed over the last 10-20 years have been built on corridors protected in the mid-twentieth century (for example, the Westlink M7 in NSW and East Link in Victoria).

For various reasons, those practices have often not been applied over the last 20 years. Governments are now beginning to take steps to redress this gap in the nation's infrastructure planning, but the corridor protection regimes from the past have not yet been fully reinstated.

The most critical element in those past regimes, i.e. a stable funding source for acquisition of properties as required, requires further attention by most governments.79 When corridor protection is only offered through annual budget appropriations, there is a risk that the necessary funds will not receive the priority they deserve. Funding for projects that bear results in the near term is more likely to be given priority.

Effective coordination between Australian and state/territory governments is essential in this area. This ideally will see:

■  governments agreeing which corridors require protection;

■  agreements on appropriate steps (e.g. through statutory land use controls) to protect these corridors;

■  agreement on secure funding arrangements to ensure that the corridors are protected in an effective manner; and

■  strong commitments to good governance processes so that key corridors are not sacrificed to short-term considerations.

Infrastructure Australia will focus on the public policy and funding reforms which would assist in protecting corridors for nationally-significant infrastructure in the Australian Infrastructure Plan.

_________________________________________________________________________________

76.  Infrastructure Partnerships Australia (2010)

77.  AECOM et al (2013). See also Productivity Commission (2014a), pp. 362-365

78.  Urbis Valuations (2013)

79.  The Metropolitan Region Improvement Tax in Perth is an exception, although it does not apply to the Peel region into which Perth is expanding.