Community Newsletter - Quarter 2, 2025

Bradfield City’s first Community Open Day a huge success!

What a day! Were you lucky enough to be there?

With over 1,000 visitors registered for our inaugural Community Open Day, Saturday, 28 June 2025 was a milestone moment for Western Sydney’s city of the future!

The day began with a buzz, featuring a live cross on Nine’s Weekend TODAY with Minister Paul Scully and students from Luddenham Public School.  

A surprise visit from Philip Bradfield, grandson of our city’s namesake John Bradfield, added a special touch to the celebrations.

Visitors enjoyed:

• Guided tours of the First Building and the Advanced Manufacturing Readiness Facility (AMRF)
• Kids’ activities, food trucks, live music, and local market stalls
• The grand opening of our Visitor Centre, offering a hands-on look at Bradfield’s exciting future 

A heartfelt thank you to everyone who joined us and helped make the day such a success. Your energy and enthusiasm brought Bradfield to life! 

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Video transcript

Bradfield Community Open Day June 2025

Hon. Paul Scully

I've got some of the students from Luddenham Public School behind me. This is an exciting opportunity for the community to have  a look what's happening at Bradfield.

 

Woman 1

It feels a bit like we're part  of something big and important.

 

Ken Morrison
A thousand people coming to Bradfield  to check out what's happening in Australia's first new city in a 100 years.

 

Man 1

Just bring the kids down to check the place out. It's quite amazing what's what's being built here. 

 

Woman 2

I'm having a great day. Everyone's friendly. Everyone's informed. Everyone's helpful. 

 

Woman 3

I think it's fascinating to get an insight and to be able to chat to people one-on-one. 

 

Mitch Nunnari

Best thing about my job is days like today. So being able to share knowledge and see the awe in people's faces when they see what manufacturing is and what these machines are capable of doing. 

 

Luke Purnell

By bringing through these groups it's hopefully going to stimulate the next generation. 

 

Hon. Paul Scully

One push and I've broken it! (Laughs) Ah there we go. 

 

Woman 4

So far, so good. 

 

Child 1

So good!

 

Man 2

The planning, the thought that's gone into it is amazing. 

 

David Fox

It's an opportunity to really just bring everyone out enjoy it, find out a little bit about it, just spread the word about what we're doing here.

 

Ken Morrison

We are very focused on the economic job  this city's doing, but we also want the community to embrace it and it's fantastic to see that the community is embracing that. We're really excited to have them here, hopefully they're as excited as we are.

 

Child 2

Yeah Bradfield City's looking very awesome. 

 

 

 

 

BDA and Liverpool City Council join forces  

In May, Bradfield Development Authority and Liverpool City Council committed to Bradfield City Centre’s vibrant future, signing an agreement that will shape the delivery of Australia’s first new city in 100 years.

• How will the local community and businesses benefit from the aligned approach?
• New highly skilled jobs and industry growth will add to the already thriving economy of Liverpool LGA
• A commitment to new local infrastructure and services in Bradfield as the city evolves, making the most of public and private investment in Liverpool and the Aerotropolis
• A collaborative vision to transform Liverpool and Bradfield into a vibrant hub for Western Sydney’s diverse people and businesses

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Video transcript

BDA and Liverpool City Council join forces

Ken Morrison

This is a big vision that we've got the responsibility of delivering, and it's right from the outset of that vision, it was a vision which was centered on partnership. 

Ned Mannoun

We have an opportunity to do something small or do something big and I think what we're doing here in Bradfield by signing this MOU and working together we are doing something big. 

Natalie Camilleri

So the agreement we've signed today comes off the back of already, an extraordinary partnership of years' worth of work to get to this point. So, we're delighted to to now formalise our partnership with Liverpool City Council. 

Ken Morrison

Well, Bradfield City Centre is proudly part of Liverpool, and so we are partners for life this city and today we formalise that. Today we make sure that we've got the foundations of a great relationship locked in, in our MoU. 

Ned Mannoun

This is a historic day and a historic agreement between the Bradfield Development Authority and Liverpool City Council. No longer are we just somewhere out West. No, this is the centre of all the brains and all the passion, all the energy. People actually want to do something great.

Building a connected city of the future

Bradfield City Centre is on its way to becoming an ultra-high-tech and connected part of Western Sydney, with the technology to support residents, businesses and visitors well into the future.

BDA recently announced the appointment of our digital infrastructure partner – major Australian telecommunications company and internet service provider Superloop and partner OneWiFi.  

Superloop will be providing important infrastructure including:

• ultra high-speed and connected Internet and mobile services
• free public Wi-Fi
• a network of Multi-Function Poles which will be used for banners, public art, traffic lights and electric bike charging. 

This digital connectivity and accessibility is critical to bringing Bradfield to life and establishing its place as Western Sydney’s high-tech hub; a future city for generations to come. 

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Building a connected city of the future - BDA Superloop MoU

Paul Tyler

This is exciting. When you say the first city or first new city in 100 years, I mean it is a new city. 

Ken Morrison

We want this new city to be anchored around advanced manufacturing, anchored around advanced technology. 

Paul Tyler

We know that the dependence on internet is everything these days, and it was only going to increase into the future. 

Ken Morrison

So this is a foundational arrangement, a foundational agreement which will help make Bradfield a successful city for the future. 

Daisey Stampfer

In general terms, we're building the fibre infrastructure to support the community and the businesses within this precinct. 

Mevan Jayatilleke

Superloop is the backbone infrastructure for what is proposed to be developed in Bradfield. OneWiFi is a smart city component. So, we provide the tech that connects it all back to the internet. 

Stephen Sheehan

We're going to have a network of multi-function poles, providing all kinds of different services - enhanced safety, free public Wi-Fi. 

Natalie Camilleri

It really is about having the convenience of being able to connect to the digital world without any barriers. 

Paul Tyler

Nothing can really thrive in the future without high quality internet, and that's what this partnership is going to deliver.

Celebrating our award-winning First Building

Bradfield’s First Building continues to impress, recently recognised in a number of industry awards, including receiving the prestigious Premier’s Prize at the recent 2025 NSW Architecture Awards.  
 
Premier Chris Minns praised the project, stating, “A new city requires a big dream … it’s incredibly exciting to see that dream taking shape here in Bradfield.” 
 
The building also received an Award for Sustainable Architecture and a Commendation for Commercial Architecture. 
 
The First Building has been recognised in multiple industry awards, including:

• Winner: Outstanding Innovation Project, Boomtown Awards 2024, Western Sydney Leadership Dialogue
• Shortlisted: Urban Taskforce Development Excellence Awards 2025
• Shortlisted: Sustainability, Urban Developer Awards for Industry Excellence 2025
• Finalist: Biophilic Design Awards 2025
• Shortlisted: Civic Landscape and Small Projects, Australian Institute of Landscape Architects Awards 2025
• Finalist: Sustainability, UDIA Awards 2025, UDIA 
• Finalist: Government Projects, 2025 Project Management Achievement Awards, AIPM

The accolades reflect the fantastic vision and collaboration with Authority partners Hassell, Djinjama, Dharug Traditional Custodians, NSW Public Works, and Taylor. 

Behind the scenes: First Building’s thriving green roof

Since First Building's green roof was planted in September last year, it has grown into a thriving sustainable ecosystem.

The 1300sqm green roof is a key sustainability feature of the First Building, helping to keep the building cool, improve the efficiency of the solar panels, and attracting biodiversity to Bradfield.

The roof has already experienced the heat of summer and freezing winter nights, and will soon enter its first spring as an established ecosystem. We can’t wait to watch the native plants and biodiversity flourish.

Bringing 50 years of horticultural experience to the job, Rick Downes of family business Three Owls Landscaping planted 14,000 native plants on the rooftop, and passionately maintains the roof weekly to ensure its growth.

Watch this video of Rick explaining the roof’s highlights.

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First Building garden rooftop with Rick Downes

Rick Downes

It was a lot of work, but I'm very, very proud of it. We're very happy to do it. 

Being a small business, it's virtually only the three of us did this project - my wife, my son, and I. 

My name's Richard Downes. I've been involved in horticulture for 50 years, just myself. 

I've been doing civic green roofs for about 20 years on a smaller level. This is the largest green roof we've done to date. 

This particular roof, they're all plants native to the Cumberland Plain consisting of grasses, sedges, groundcovers, a few unusual ones like native pelargoniums, native violets, bulbine bulbosa. 

It was a challenging project in terms of this whole structure. We never actually put this much soil and material on a timber roof before. So there's only 110 mm of soil on the whole roof, which isn't that much, and a fine layer of gravel on the top. 

The roof has always got a constant supply of natural water that's being used and recycled by itself to form its own little ecosystem. We've definitely seen a lot of praying mantises and praying mantis eggs. A lot of moths. We've seen caterpillars, wasps, butterflies, native bees. 

This project had the intention of putting green roof under solar panels to keep them cooler. If the solar panels are cooler, I'm told they get more efficient. 

I'm very proud to have been involved in such a big project. I didn't realise how big this building actually was in a brand new city. But it is very important to us to be involved in such a big project - or at least have consultation and advice cuz it's all about giving knowledge more than anything else I think.

Welcoming visitors to Bradfield

The First Building has become a vibrant hub of activity at Bradfield since its opening and the subsequent launch of the Bradfield Visitor Centre.

We have been welcoming a diverse mix of visitors through our visitor tours. Among our visitors we have welcomed local councils, and government agencies, Lower Blue Mountains Rotary, and students from Luddenham Public School, Knox Grammar, and St Patrick’s Campbelltown, NECA and YES Employment Services.

Our Tour Guide, Nathaly, is a welcoming host as visitors join us at the Bradfield Visitor Centre to learn about the Bradfield City Master Plan, the Aerotropolis and the Advanced Manufacturing Readiness Facility (AMRF). Visitors learn about topics like sustainability, city design, civil works, and future careers; with educational tours having a targeted focus on the topics students are focused on as part of their learning curriculum.

Book your school or group visit to the Bradfield Visitor Centre

Whether you're a local resident, a teacher organising an excursion, a community group wanting to learn more, or a curious traveller our centre offers a unique and inspiring experience. Book your visit today.

Upcoming projects

We’re excited to share that both Central Park and the Second Building have received SSDA approval - a major milestone in Bradfield’s journey.

A welcoming public space in the heart of the city next door to the Bradfield Metro Station, Central Park will provide important early green, open space for workers, residents, and visitors to gather, play, and relax.

Second Building will house Stage 2 of the Advanced Manufacturing Readiness Facility (AMRF), with a focus on semiconductor packaging and advanced micro-electronics. The AMRF will accelerate innovation in industry and is a key feature of the economic development strategy underpinning Bradfield.

Greening Bradfield’s roads

Bradfield’s streets are getting a lush new look!

The WEM Civil and WEM Scape teams are transforming roads, cycleways, and pedestrian paths with: 

• Over 180 mature trees planted
• More than 5,600 native plants in the ground 

Featured tree species include: 

• Blackbutt
• Scribbly Gum
• Lemon-scented Gum
• Kurrajong
• Frangipani 

Native grasses like Shara, Slender Rush, and Tall Sedge are adding texture and resilience to the landscape.

With 4km of roads and 8km of paths to deliver, the plan includes: 

• Over 600 trees
• More than 36 hectares of green open space 

This is just the beginning of a cooler, greener Bradfield City! 

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Arts and culture come alive: PYT Fairfield joins Bradfield

We’re excited to welcome PYT Fairfield (Powerhouse Youth Theatre) as the Creative Producer for Bradfield City Centre!

With an incredible 38-year legacy of working alongside Western Sydney communities and sharing their stories through powerful performances across Australia, PYT Fairfield brings a wealth of creativity and connection to Bradfield.

Over the next 18 months, PYT Fairfield will be embedded in the First Building, where they’ll develop a vibrant series of arts and cultural programs designed to engage, inspire, and celebrate our diverse community.

Congratulations to the Civic Places team for making this partnership a reality. We can’t wait to see Bradfield come alive with storytelling, performance, and creativity!

Luddenham Public School imagines Bradfield

What does the next generation shaping Bradfield City as it grows imagine for their future city? 

To celebrate Bradfield's inaugural Community Open Day we invited Luddenham Public School students to explore their dreams for Bradfield. 

We asked them to imagine what their future city will look like in artwork form. 

Please enjoy the wonderful animation of the students' artworks, now on display in First Building - 'Dreaming of Bradfield's Future'. 

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Championing women’s pathways into advanced manufacturing

The AMRF is expanding its role in building a future-ready workforce by actively supporting women’s entry into advanced manufacturing. Through its collaboration with Western Sydney Women, the AMRF has contributed to the delivery of the Jobs of the Future program, which provides participants with practical exposure to the industry and aims to strengthen diversity and capability across this vital sector. 

As part of the program, the AMRF hosted an immersive industry experience on 31 March that introduced participants to the principles and practice of advanced manufacturing. The event featured a comprehensive tour of the facility, hands-on activities including a ply cutter demonstration, and a group project focused on problem-solving and collaboration. A panel discussion with experienced professionals from the sector offered further insight into career pathways and the opportunities available within the industry. This experience served as a foundational element of the broader program and helped establish a meaningful connection between participants and the advanced manufacturing environment. 

Following the conclusion of the program, and in recognition of International Women in Engineering Day on 23 June, the AMRF hosted the graduation ceremony with support from Microsoft. The event celebrated the achievements of the participants, who completed the program with a deeper understanding of the sector, practical industry experience, and newly developed professional networks. Their success highlights the increasing strength and diversity of Western Sydney’s talent pipeline. 

As advanced manufacturing continues to evolve, the AMRF remains focused on supporting sustainable workforce development that reflects the needs and potential of the region. By fostering inclusive engagement and strategic partnerships, the AMRF is helping to build a skilled and resilient industrial ecosystem prepared for future growth.

Submarine valve project

Not quite sure what the AMRF can do?  

Noticing inefficiencies in traditional marine valve supply chains, the AMRF set out to demonstrate a local manufacturing solution that would maintain performance, safety, and certification standards. The challenge they gave themselves: could a component typically cast overseas be produced entirely in-house using advanced manufacturing methods? 

The team reverse-engineered the 8-inch globe valve and produced it from a solid billet of duplex stainless steel, applying generative design tools to build a full manufacturing workflow. The outcome was a fully machined valve housing that met or exceeded existing performance standards and was delivered months faster than traditional castings. 

This success highlights the AMRF’s integrated approach to advanced manufacturing, where design and production operate seamlessly under one roof. While developed for submarine sustainment, the project demonstrates broader potential for supporting mission-critical sectors through rapid, sovereign manufacturing capability. 

To learn more, view the video below. 

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Video transcript

Submarine Valve Demonstrator - AMRF Success Story

James Stokes

How fast can you look at a problem find a solution and then actually start implementing it with then a product coming out at the end of it is essentially what we were trying to target.

Maegan Baker

The submarine case study is definitely an example of how the AMRF can bring a whole bunch of expertise together, help manufacturers de-risk, innovate and scale.

Steve Milanoski

To me it's just a really interesting challenge, which is we have these manufacturing techniques that have existed for a very long time that we're reliant on, that probably haven't gotten the amount of attention they've deserved over the last couple decades

James Stokes

Typically these kind of marine valves - the design of them - has stayed pretty stagnant as it's been linked to kind of casting methodologies for manufacturing them, and so when we were looking at it from, you know using the tools within the AMRF, we found that there was potential to really decrease your time to market. But that required adapting the design so then you could actually manufacture it as quick as possible.

Niraj Shah

So we wanted to achieve at least equal performance to the traditional wall but make it easy to manufacture.

Steve Milanoski

Turns out that valve housings are in massive demand, not just for defence applications, but there's a direct translation from that application to all these other fields. So oil and gas, aviation, space, you know, our ability to control flow is not, you know, isolated to one industry specifically.

So talking to our you, know design and applications team, what would it take for us to make it? What's best suited for this type of technology?

Maegan Baker

The team engaged in the computational fluid dynamic analysis to take a look at what was actually happening inside of that valve and make sure that whatever we were producing at the AMRF was not just faster, cheaper, and easier to make, but also something that performed to a much higher standard. 

James Stokes

The methodology we took was to kind of do a flow analysis on it, and try to figure out what actually the most optimized flow regime through the path was.

Niraj Shah

We took this marine valve which is made using casting, and then optimized the design of it so that it's easy to manufacture using CNC machine.

Maegan Baker

I think people are really surprised to know that we actually did machine the duplex stainless steel. It is such a difficult material to to cut out um on the CNC machine.

Steve Milanoski

Duplex stainless is it no fun. The team really stepped up to a challenge that I didn't think they saw coming when they signed up. 

James Stokes

Part of what we're looking at is those difficult problems and to kind of give a bit of confidence to say "Yeah it can be done you can take these on and actually do them." 

Steve Milanoski

We're not focused on basic research. We're not here to reinvent the wheel. It's more how do we parameterise it, and do a best fit for the most possible cases?  

Maegan Baker

It shows through an actual example, the kind of difference that the AMRF can make for manufacturers and to the sector as well. So these are the types of things that, you know, we can help, we can help with, and we're really, really keen to talk to manufacturers about that.