Narromine to Narrabri community drop-in sessions

The week commencing 19 October 2020, our regional liaison officers joined staff from the Australian Rail Track Corporation (ARTC) Inland Rail community engagement team for community drop-in sessions along the Narromine to Narrabri (N2N) alignment.

Regional liaison officers from the Dubbo and Moree office travelled almost 1,000km visiting Narromine, Gilgandra, Curban, Coonamble, Baradine and Narrabri for a series of drop-in sessions that provided an opportunity for the community to engage with the team and to find out more about the potential impacts and benefits of Inland Rail in the region.

The sessions provided valuable community insights and engagement with local people that will help ARTC to finalise the Environmental Impact Statement for N2N ahead of it being lodged with the New South Wales Department of Planning, Industry and Environment.

This was the first open public consultation for the project undertaken since NSW eased COVID-19 restrictions. For the safety and wellbeing of all involved, the drop-in sessions were compliant with the updated regulations. This meant that physical distancing of 1.5m was maintained at all times, hand sanitiser was provided and all visitors were required to sign in on entry.

Interested members of the public can now view the proposed final N2N rail corridor via a new interactive online map that shows the refined rail corridor and the area that will form part of the construction impact zone. Another new feature launched at the sessions was an animated fly-through of the entire N2N route and 3D models of key structures along the line.