| Woodcroft Sydney, New South Wales |
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Lake Woodcroft |
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| Population: | 5400 (2006) | ||||||||||||
| Established: | 1996 | ||||||||||||
| Postcode: | 2767 | ||||||||||||
| Location: | 42 km (26 mi) west of Sydney CBD | ||||||||||||
| LGA: | City of Blacktown | ||||||||||||
| State District: | Blacktown | ||||||||||||
| Federal Division: | Chifley | ||||||||||||
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Woodcroft is a suburb of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Woodcroft is located 42 kilometres west of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of the City of Blacktown and is part of the Greater Western Sydney region.
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Up until the 1980s Woodcroft was the State Brickworks in Doonside. In 1989, the land was purchased by estate agents and developers L.J. Hooker. After rezoning, residential construction commenced in 1992 and Woodcroft was formally recognised as a suburb in 1996.[1]
There is a modest independent retail mall on Richmond Road. Services include a service station, supermarket, video rental store, and a variety of independent and franchise fast food outlets.
Facilities such as disabled toilets, parenting rooms, and children's play areas, are either limited or not available.
The Blacktown Social Plan[2] shows that Woodcroft households are much more likely to have one car than is usual across both the city of Blacktown, and the Sydney greater metropolitan area. However they are also much less likely to have two or more cars than is usual. This is somewhat of an indication of the transport connections throughout the area and the demographic of the population.
Access to public transport is somewhat limited, being via bus to either Blacktown, Doonside or Quakers Hill railway stations. Most households have one car.
The M7 motorway is accessible to Woodcroft via either the Richmond Road or Quakers Hill Parkway. Since it opened in December 2005 this has improved access to the Hills District, Liverpool and providing connections to both the M2 and M4 motorways.
The predominant form of housing throughout the suburb is free standing single homes. Just 1.1% of residences are apartments and 13% are townhouses or semis[3]. This modern, low density housing is a reflection of the standard of living throughout the suburb.
Woodcroft features a small man-made lake called Woodcroft Lake.
While many communities’ access will be improved by the rollout of the National Broadband Network, Woodcroft appears to have been left behind.
Unable to access ADSL 2, with download speeds of up to 20 mega bytes per second (mbps), businesses at Woodcroft’s Centro shopping centre must pay for wireless pre-paid connections or endure ADSL 1 speeds of 1.3mbps at higher rates than the fastest internet, costs most consumers.
Chifley federal Labor MP Ed Husic is so incensed by the inadequate telecommunications infrastructure he brawled with Communications Minister Stephen Conroy over Woodcroft missing out on the first major NBN rollout in 2012 and has organised a forum in Dec 2011 for residents to let the NBN Co know why they need to be part of the $35.9 billion project urgently.
The Blacktown Social Plan indicates that between 1996 and 2001 census, the population increased from 1683 to 4969 people, an increase of over 195%. This is linked directly to the level of residential development occurring throughout the 1990s.[2] The 2006 census population of 5,355 shows the population has stabilised somewhat since then.[3]
The Blacktown Social Plan shows that compared to the averages across both the City of Blacktown, and the Sydney greater metropolitan area, residents of Woodcroft are more likely to be English literate migrants, working in white collar jobs. They are also very likely to be buying their own house and to be living as a couple with children.
Since there are relatively sparse retail services here, the majority of residents are more likely to work and shop in nearby city centres such as Blacktown, Parramatta or Penrith.