‘Almost certain to fail’: the high-risk NSW plan to offset huge new urban growth areas

Critically endangered woodland on the Cumberland Plain in western Sydney. The NSW government hopes to undertake a risky plan to reconstruct cleared bushland on the plain. Photograph: Carly Earl/The Guardian

The Perrottet government plans to use a controversial reconstruction technique to offset up to a quarter of the endangered bushland that it will clear to make way for a massive housing expansion around Sydney. The plan has been branded by experts as “high risk at best, if not almost certain to fail”.

The government announced last year it had approved the Cumberland plain conservation plan, a major planning policy that will guide the development of four new urban growth areas and up to 73,000 houses from Penrith to Wilton over 35 years.