Photo: NSW Premier Mike Baird inspects drilling equipment at the Concord site. (ABC News)

WestConnex: Excavation at Concord marks start of construction of M4 East tunnels

By state political reporter Ashleigh Raper

18 Jul 2016,

Tunnelling has begun at Concord in Sydney's inner west signalling the start of construction for the M4 East section of the WestConnex Motorway.

The excavator, known as the roader header, has begun travelling underground to create two five-and-a-half kilometre tunnels which will extend the M4 motorway by linking Homebush to Haberfield.

The site at Concord is one of two tunnelling locations in the suburb, with another two locations at Haberfield and Homebush.

"As that machine has gone down, we won't see it again for 18 months as it gets on the job of tunnelling, but when it comes back and we see it again, the tunnelling will be complete," New South Wales Premier Mike Baird said.

"And that will be another historic day."

It is part of stage one of the $16.8 billion project.

The State Government said the aim of this section was to ease congestion on Parramatta Road because motorists would be able to bypass the bottleneck where the M4 meets Parramatta Road.

The M4 East will connect to a widened M4 motorway at Homebush and will also eventually connect to the M5 providing a 33-kilometre motorway with connections at Rozelle, Camperdown, St Peters and Sydney Airport.

A significant number of homes have had to be acquired around Haberfield to make way for this part of WestConnex making it very unpopular with many in the local community.

The M4 East part of the project is due to be completed by 2019.