Liverpool Mayor Ned Mannoun has issued a stark warning that current plans for Middleton Grange risk turning the quiet residential suburb into a high-volume traffic shortcut, with up to 6,000 cars a day expected to flood local streets.
Mayor Mannoun said Council’s traffic modelling paints a deeply concerning picture for residents, with the proposed Middleton Drive Extension effectively operating as a “pressure relief valve” for a State road network that has failed to keep pace with growth in Southwest Sydney.
“Let’s call this what it is,” Mayor Mannoun said. “This is not about improving local amenity. This is about diverting traffic off already overburdened roads like Cowpasture Road and Fifteenth Avenue and pushing it straight through a residential neighbourhood.”
“Six thousand cars a day is not local traffic. That is a rat run.”
Mayor Mannoun said it was unacceptable that Middleton Grange residents should bear the consequences of what he described as years of inadequate infrastructure planning by the State Government.
“Why should local families pay the price for the State’s failure to properly upgrade major arterial roads?” he said. “People moved to Middleton Grange, Cecil and Elizabeth Hills for a quiet, safe community. They did not sign up to live on a traffic corridor.”
Council has completed detailed design work for the M7 Underpass and Middleton Drive Extension, resolving complex engineering, environmental and stakeholder requirements. However, the Mayor said the project has grown significantly in scope and cost, and its broader impacts must now be reconsidered.
“This is now a much larger and more complex project than originally anticipated,” he said. “Council has done the hard work, but we will not blindly proceed if it comes at the expense of our residents’ safety and quality of life.”
Mayor Mannoun confirmed Council is actively considering whether to halt the project in its current form. “We will not be complicit in turning Middleton Grange into a bypass for the State’s congestion problem,” he said.
The Mayor has called on local State Members of Parliament to stand with the community and demand a rethink. “This is the moment for local MPs to do the right thing,” he said. “Stand with your residents, not with a flawed plan.”
“We are asking the State Government to go back to the drawing board, properly fund critical road upgrades, and deliver infrastructure that works for communities, not against them.”
Mayor Mannoun said Liverpool City Council remains committed to delivering essential infrastructure for a growing city, but not at any cost. “Our priority is, and always will be, the people who live here.”
