Huge contracts awarded for $5.3 billion Western Sydney Airport

The Federal Government says bulldozers will hit the Western Sydney Airport site by the end of the year, triggering the physical and symbolic start of Sydney’s long-awaited second airport site.

The Turnbull Government on Saturday announced engineering giant Bechtel, which is behind major airport upgrades in London, Dubai and Hong Kong, will oversee construction of the $5.3 billion airport. It also won the bid to help with development work on the airport’s design.

WSA Co – the government-owned company building the airport – also announced Australian companies Lendlease and CPB have been awarded the early earthworks contract, with bulldozers set to be on site “before the end of the year”.

The joint venture between will be in charge of moving about 1.8 million cubic metres of soil to start levelling the land.

It will also build access roads and drainage to allow major construction to begin in 2019.

Work is due to start before the end of the year, Urban Infrastructure Minister Paul Fletcher said.

“The Western Sydney Airport is going ahead,” he told reporters on Saturday.

The three contracts are expected to create up to 300 jobs.

But Labor MP Ed Husic said locals remained in the dark about the final paths planes will take in and out of the airport and what impact that will have on them.

“After four years we have no idea where these planes will fly, and no resident concept,” he told ABC TV.

The government has released “indicative flight plans” and Mr Fletcher said residents were being kept in the loop via a number of community consultations and forums.

The airport is due to open in 2026.

Source: ABC, news.com.au