Annual report from the Glebe Society’s representative on the Community Consultative Committee for the new Sydney Fish Market

By Asa Wahlquist, Glebe Society’s representative on the new Sydney Fish Market Community Consultative Committee, Bulletin 8/2024, October

The shape of the new Sydney Fish Market is becoming clearer week by week as the glulam beams of the roof are set in place. What is not clear is the impact the new Fish Market will have on Glebe residents.

The Glebe Society objected strongly to the proposed new Fish Market, arguing the new market should be built on the site of the old. But the new market, with twice the area, the expectation that numbers would double but with the same number of parking spaces, that blocks views from Wentworth Park and juts out over Blackwattle Bay, was approved.

The Community Consultative Committee meets monthly with the builder, Multiplex, with one bureaucrat, from Infrastructure NSW, present. It is an exercise in frustration. Multiplex has a limited ability to deal with our complaints beyond noise and dust. The most pressing questions, particularly about future traffic impacts, can only be answered by the State Government. Despite repeated requests from the Committee, we have received limited and unsatisfactory responses.

In April the Committee finally received a briefing about the draft traffic management from Josh Milston, from JMT, who is a consultant to Transport for NSW. The Committee was frustrated that, as a consultant, Mr Milston was limited in how he could respond. We were also told our meeting would be the only community consultation on the traffic management report. Anyone who walks past the current Fish Market early in the morning can only wonder how all that traffic will be accommodated on Bridge Road, a major arterial road.

Over the next couple of months a set of lights on the corner of Wentworth Park Road and Bridge Road will be constructed. The entry to the Fish Market car park is directly opposite Wentworth Park Road. A lane in front of the Fish Market adjacent to Bridge Road for bus and taxi drop-offs will also be constructed. There will be a right turn lane on Bridge Road coming from the Pyrmont direction for vehicles entering the Fish Market, though buses will be prohibited from turning because accessing the bus drop-off lane essentially means doing a U-turn. That means buses will all come along Bridge Road from Glebe or Wentworth Road. And where will they park once they drop off their passengers?

The Committee is particularly concerned about the morning influx of large trucks and vans which will transport not just fish, but the produce for the many shops of the complex. Two points here: despite the Fish Market’s claim to be authentic, over 95 per cent of the fish sold at the markets are not locally sourced because there are only a couple of local fishing boats left; and what impact will this new government-funded food court have on the food businesses of Glebe Point Road? The Committee has been assured the larger trucks will enter by a timed system, which raises two questions: have the people who proposed this ever driven in Sydney’s morning traffic to arrive at a tight deadline, and where will the trucks wait until their time slot comes up?

The new footpath will be a shared path, shared by pedestrians and cyclists, despite the obvious failure of such a path along the Glebe foreshore.

Parking will undoubtedly be a huge issue for local residents. The new Fish Market will have the same number of car parks as the current market. Mr Milston acknowledged ‘a significant amount’ of spaces will be taken by staff, and to counter this staff will be charged at market rates. No doubt those unable to park at the market will seek parking nearby in Glebe.

Earlier this year Multiplex requested dramatically increased working hours, until midnight during the week and all day on the weekends. We were assured all out of hours work would be done inside the building. The reasons given were the weather, and the three weeks lost after the collapse of a huge crane. A quick survey of Glebe Society members found most supported it on the grounds they just wanted the whole thing over and done with.

The basic structure of the Fish Market was originally scheduled to be completed by the end of this year, with fit-outs to take longer. Infrastructure NSW refuses to give a finish date beyond saying it will be completed next year, though several media reports have nominated October 2025 as the finish date.