Could Orange be home to 100,000 people?
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NSW deputy premier and Nationals leader John Barilaro last week suggested regional hubs like Tamworth and Wagga Wagga could support populations of 100,000, and community leaders have said it’s possible for Orange to have the same goal.
Wagga Wagga has nearly 65,000 people, while Tamworth is similarly-sized to Orange, with just over 40,000 people calling it home.
Speaking to the Central Western Daily two weeks ago, Mr Barilaro said Orange had all the trappings of a “modern, cosmopolitan city”.
While he didn’t suggest Orange could house 100,000 people, Mr Barilaro said having de-centralised government agencies in town, as well as good healthcare and employment, meant Orange was certainly on the radar as a regional hub.
Orange City Councillor and chairman of the Economic Development Community Committee Jeff Whitton said Orange “certainly” had the capability to be a 100,000-person centre.
Mr Whitton spends up to three days a week in Sydney, and said over the past three years he’d watched the state capital become “unlivable” due to traffic, and the state government needed the vision to look outwards to centres like Orange.
He claimed the major barrier to growing as a destination was infrastructure to connect Orange to Sydney, including a new freeway through the Blue Mountains connecting to the M4, and upgrades to rail services.
“Without infrastructure we’re not going to see any major growth, even with major cities like Wagga or Tamworth,” Cr Whitton said.
“But if we’re going to see these sorts of numbers [of people] – not that we’re going to reach it in my lifetime – we as civic leaders need to talk about those sorts of numbers and how to deal with it.”
He said population growth always caused “interesting debate” in Orange, but said the city always needed to be looking to the future, especially to provide career opportunities to young people.
When asked if Orange could be a city to rival a potential 100,000-population Tamworth or Wagga Wagga, member for Orange Philip Donato said “why not?”
“I think we’ve got more going for us than both those towns,” he said.
Mr Donato cited the location, climate, education providers, sporting amenities and health system as drawcards.