Eamon Waterford, CEO of the Committee for Sydney:

“This could be the breakthrough Sydney’s east so desperately needs, taking areas with great amenity and making them part of the solution to our housing crisis.

“If we get the affordable housing part of this right, it will change the destiny of Sydney’s east – from an exclusive enclave reserved for the wealthy to an inclusive place where the people who keep our city running can afford to live in the communities they serve.

“This is a problem we all need to grapple with – we need nurses and cleaners in city hospitals, teachers in schools and hospitality workers, but the simple fact is when you take out the cost of longer and more expensive work commutes, there’s not enough left in their paypackets to make it work.

“It’s going to take clever ideas like this, opening up a planned train line that’s been sitting in plain sight for decades, to unlock the housing Sydney so desperately needs.