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Parramatta Road to become an Information Highway

Sydney's Inner Metropolitan Regional Organisation of Councils (IMROC) is to create a geospatial planning database for Parramatta Road and the tributaries to the Parramatta River. It is to be known as Sydney's Information Highway.

The work will be funded by a grant of $80,000 awarded under the 1999 Australian Spatial Data Infrastructure partnerships program operated by Australia's national mapping agency AUSLIG.

IMROC is working in coalition with the NSW Department of Urban Affairs and Planning, the Land Information Centre, Department of Land and Water Conservation and the Office of the Sydney Harbour Manager.

Executive Officer of IMROC Susan McHattie said, while this project has a planning focus, the sharing of geospatial data between State and Local Government via the internet will provide an opportunity for Councils to develop software applications to support their asset management role.

The project will publish planning regulations from Local Government and State Government on the internet using distributed databases, against the cadastre supplied by the Land Information Centre. Members of the public will be able to query property and planning data for the length of Parramatta Road.

IMROC President Councillor Mark Bonanno said this is an important Project that links Councils and State agencies in an active partnership to integrate spatial data of value to their own planning requirements and to business and communities. "It is an important opportunity to position Local Government as strategic partners and not clients in the provision of spatial information," he said.

"Sydney's Information Highway is a pilot project that will enable us to examine some of the relationship and implementation issues in building a much broader Regional Information Network under the aegis of the Connect.nsw project," said IMROC Executive Officer, Susan McHattie.

The larger project has been discussed with other agencies, including the Roads and Traffic Authority, Sydney Water, Energy Australia, NSW.net, Telstra, Western Sydney Regional Organisation of Councils.

One of the outcomes of the pilot project will be a business case and project plan for the project partners, and for Councils to accelerate the publication of other spatial and textual data.

For further information contact Sue McHattie, telephone (02) 9265 9804.

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