An artists' impression of the mixed use apartment block slated for 548 Canterbury Road. But a report released this week by the City of Canterbury Bankstown, the council formed from the forced local government amalgamations of last year, provides a grim summation of the results of that 2010 masterplan. "The vision of the 2010 masterplan is today further from reality than ever before," a 510-page Canterbury Road Review, adopted by the new council on Tuesday night, says. "The traffic function of the road has increased with new development adding traffic volume," the Review says. In short: "Canterbury Road Corridor is a noisy, polluted and harsh environment, generally unsuitable in its current state for housing."

This Canterbury Road development is one of a number of controversial projects approved by the former council. Credit:Steven Siewert The new council, however, is hopeful of arresting the situation. The reason the review into Canterbury Road is so long is that it includes assessments – by Hill Thalis Architecture + Urban Projects, SGS Economics and Planning, and GHD – of what can be done to the urban design and function of the road between Punchbowl and Hurlstone Park. The report's recommendation, which the council has opened for consultation, is that future apartment projects should be clumped around seven junctions along Canterbury Road. Apartment blocks in those areas would be limited to six storeys. They would hopefully be complemented by a series of parallel laneways to improve pedestrian flow and circulation, as well as potential changes to the traffic movements along Canterbury Road.

The report also recommends cycleways and parks, some to be paid for through development contributions. "Obviously a corridor like that isn't the greatest place for residential development, but I guess the focus was on what are the things we need to do if we are to achieve residential density," said the City of Canterbury Bankstown's director of planning, Scott Pedder. Mr Pedder, who was not at the former Canterbury Council when the developments were approved, said the aim of the review was not to look at what had happened in the past, but what could be done to improve the corridor. "It is really about how do we deal with the future planning of this thing to make sure long term we don't have people living in the wrong place," he said. The adoption of the plan, which includes 15 recommendations relating to zoning, street parking layouts and community facilities, is likely to be a matter for the new City of Canterbury Bankstown council, to be elected in September.

Separately, the state government is proposing more intense housing development along the Sydenham to Bankstown rail line. These plans include up to 25-storey towers in place. The rail line run mostly runs parallel to Canterbury Road, about 800 metres to the north of much of the corridor.