| Badgerys Creek Sydney, New South Wales |
|||||||||||||
| Population: | 721 (2006) | ||||||||||||
| Postcode: | 2555 | ||||||||||||
| Location: | 51 km (32 mi) west of Sydney CBD | ||||||||||||
| LGA: | City of Liverpool | ||||||||||||
| State District: | Mulgoa | ||||||||||||
| Federal Division: | Macarthur | ||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||
Badgerys Creek is a suburb of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Badgerys Creek is located 51 kilometres west of the Sydney central business district, in the local government areas of the City of Liverpool. It is part of the Greater Western Sydney region and is adjacent to the suburbs of Kemps Creek and Austral.
Contents |
North of Elizabeth Drive, a substantial amount of land is taken up by the CSIRO Research Station, University of Sydney MacGarvie Smith Veterinary Farm, and a landfill depot. Much of the research establishment is dotted with reservoirs. The southeast includes a brickworks, and land owned by Telstra, also featuring a number of reservoirs. The suburb is also home to the Hubertus Liverpool Rifle Club.[1]
James Badgery was a British-born farmer and miller who was granted 840 acres (3.4 km2) in 1806 in the suburb that bears his name today. His original land grant was on the north side of Elizabeth Drive, land which today is used for farming research by the CSIRO and University of Sydney. He named his property Exeter Farm but the creek running through his property became known as Badgery's Creek and this was the name that stuck to the local area.[2]
Badgery bought other land to the south of his grant and after he died, the area was subdivided in the 1880s, vastly increasing the local population. A school was established in 1895 and the area gradually developed as a rural suburb which by 1981 had a population of 1560. In 1986, the Federal Government announced it was building the Second Sydney Airport at Badgerys Creek. It bought out properties and most of the population moved away so that by 1996 there were fewer than 500 residents. Construction never started on the airport, and the government has now sold much of its holdings for housing, making the site even more unsuitable for an airport.
Badgerys Creek is one of the driest suburbs of Sydney with the annual precipitation being around 640mm, which is 500mm below Sydney city's average annual (1,200mm). The wettest month is February, which the precipitation reaches 106mm and the driest month is July with the precipitation being as low as 24.1mm.
| Climate data for Badgerys Creek | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Month | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Year |
| Record high °C (°F) | 45.3 (113.5) |
42.6 (108.7) |
40.0 (104.0) |
34.6 (94.3) |
27.9 (82.2) |
25.2 (77.4) |
25.4 (77.7) |
28.6 (83.5) |
34.8 (94.6) |
37.2 (99.0) |
41.9 (107.4) |
42.5 (108.5) |
45.3 (113.5) |
| Average high °C (°F) | 29.8 (85.6) |
28.6 (83.5) |
26.7 (80.1) |
24.0 (75.2) |
20.6 (69.1) |
17.9 (64.2) |
17.3 (63.1) |
19.3 (66.7) |
22.6 (72.7) |
24.7 (76.5) |
26.0 (78.8) |
28.3 (82.9) |
23.8 (74.8) |
| Average low °C (°F) | 16.8 (62.2) |
17.0 (62.6) |
14.9 (58.8) |
11.1 (52.0) |
7.8 (46.0) |
5.1 (41.2) |
4.2 (39.6) |
4.6 (40.3) |
7.7 (45.9) |
10.2 (50.4) |
13.2 (55.8) |
15.2 (59.4) |
10.6 (51.1) |
| Record low °C (°F) | 8.2 (46.8) |
8.5 (47.3) |
6.4 (43.5) |
−0.1 (31.8) |
−1.1 (30.0) |
−3 (26.6) |
−4.5 (23.9) |
−1.9 (28.6) |
−0.5 (31.1) |
2.2 (36.0) |
5.3 (41.5) |
6.6 (43.9) |
−4.5 (23.9) |
| Precipitation mm (inches) | 75.4 (2.969) |
106.5 (4.193) |
66.4 (2.614) |
34.5 (1.358) |
42.6 (1.677) |
43.7 (1.72) |
24.1 (0.949) |
33.7 (1.327) |
33.5 (1.319) |
54.8 (2.157) |
65.0 (2.559) |
56.5 (2.224) |
639.8 (25.189) |
| Source: [3] | |||||||||||||
According to the 2006 census taken by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, Badgerys Creek had a population of 721, an improvement on the 1996 figure but still less than half the number in 1981. Well over half the houses were being rented (57%), largely because of the federal government's purchase of land in the area. Badgerys Creek was still strongly rural with the three most common industries of employment being freight transport (10.1%), vegetable farming (9.4%) and meat (5.2%).[4]
Badgerys Creek flows north into a reservoir in the suburb's north, as does South Creek, the suburb's eastern boundary. West of the reservoir, is Mills Hill, and southwest of this by just over a kilometre is Raymond Hill, 125 metres above sea level. The western boundary is Oaky Creek, which becomes Cosgrove Creek after accepting this tributary five hundred metres north of Elizabeth Drive, and to the southwest the hill known as Anchau (118 metres above sea level).[1]
The suburb has one school, Badgerys Creek Primary.
It is home to Badgerys Creek Park; the toilet block has been demolished
For several years, Badgerys Creek has been the proposed site for a Second Sydney Airport, but siginificant development never took place.[5] After decades of delays and indecision, the state government eventually sold the land it had acquired to build the airport for housing.