Previous proposals have relied on leaseholders accepting long construction periods when they could not ply their trade. For good reason, this has been unacceptable. However, the plan announced last week for a new $250 million enterprise a few hundred metres along the shoreline means the existing market can remain in business until the new one opens. The new site, the details of which are yet to emerge, promises to be twice the size, with levels under the waterline and access over Bridge Road to Wentworth Park. If the reality lives up to the promise, it will be a masterstroke by Premier Mike Baird and Planning Minister Rob Stokes. However, as residents of this city know, state governments have a habit of failing to deliver on planning matters. We are hopeful, but remain sceptical.

That said, it seems that NSW planning bureaucracies are adopting an agility in their approach that has been missing until now. The Herald welcomes this. The first plans for the new International Convention Centre at Darling Harbour were criticised by stakeholders. They said it lacked adequate space for it to be a truly world-class destination. The then premier Barry O'Farrell engaged with those stakeholders and plans were improved. Critics, including the chief executive of the Exhibition and Event Association of Australasia, Joyce DiMascio, were heard and they welcomed a government that displayed a willingness to engage. The result was an improved outcome for industry and the community. Such an approach to planning stands in stark contrast to some undertaken by previous state governments, Labor and Coalition. The debacles of the Lane Cove and Cross City tunnel projects were in part caused by inflexible approaches to involving the private sector in building infrastructure.

The Herald hopes the Baird government has learnt from past mistakes and is applying, dare we say it, innovative thinking to future planning conundrums. There is a very live example in the CBD. The lord mayor, Clover Moore, has expressed dismay in the way the city light rail project is being delivered. While the Herald does not support the council's tactics in apparently threatening to withhold $47 million in funding if its concerns are not met, the council's message – delivered with the backing of key retailers – needs to be heard and practically addressed. While the Fish Market proposal seems an elegant solution, it is some orders of magnitude below the big planning challenge facing the government. That test will come with Parramatta Road, a 20-kilometre stretch of bitumen where planning dreams go to die. Last week, the Baird government released $31 billion development plans that aim to revitalise the much-maligned corridor. It is predicated on the assumption that 50,000 cars a day will be diverted from the city's clogged arterial road when the WestConnex project is completed.

While the Herald has long expressed qualified support for WestConnex, we are wary of predictions for its transformative powers for Parramatta Road. William Street was meant to become our city's Champs Elysee with the opening of the Cross City Tunnel. Last time we looked, it was still William Street. A study commissioned last year by the City of Sydney said that far from relieving Parramatta Road of its burden, WestConnex would result in traffic eventually increasing above current rates as motorists avoided high tolls and turned local streets into rat-runs. There are further road bumps to come. Prospective private sector partners are baulking at the modest requirement that 5 per cent of the 27,000 planned new homes should be affordable housing. However, the Baird government is looking to engage the private sector in a way that will allow investors to have realistic expectations. It is funding the M4 widening before seeking investment for the rest of WestConnex.

This will allow prospective partners to see what traffic rates will be, instead of investing on the basis of unrealistic projections, as happened with the Cross City Tunnel. By considering imaginative ways to solve problems, the Baird government has an opportunity to set Parramatta Road on the right course. Central to this is realising that no such plan can be "final". As our city grows, our planning approach will need to grow with it. We wish Mr Baird all the best in this endeavour. His government will need all its newly found planning agility to execute these most challenging of plans.