Strategic context

Demand for quarry products in NSW is driven by government spending on public infrastructure and private investment in commercial, industrial and residential development.

The need for infrastructure investment in NSW, including within the Southern Highlands, is identified in several key State and regional strategy documents.

Gunlake Quarry and the nearby Peppertree, Lynwood and Ardmore Park quarries have become important sources of quarry products, given their reasonable proximity and convenient transport links to the Greater Sydney Region.

Collectively, these quarries currently produce the largest volume of hard rock aggregates in NSW.

Having originally been approved in September 2008, the quarry has been operating since 2010 and has a well-established market base.

The quarry’s key products include hard rock aggregates, road base, manufactured sands and crusher dust.

Gunlake primarily supplies its products to their concrete batching plants in Sydney, as well as the general industrial and construction sectors in NSW.

Regional extractive industry market

Access to suitable extractive resources is limited by geology, local lithology and competing land uses. To be economically viable, extractive material suppliers also need to be relatively close to markets, with good transport links to enable conveyance of high volumes of product.

Gunlake quarry’s location near the Hume Highway allows economic delivery of quarry products to the highway, and direct transport to markets, including to growth areas in the Greater Sydney region and to regional areas to the southwest.

Until 2016, the Penrith Lakes Scheme dominated supply of quarry products such as construction sand and gravel across the Sydney Region. 

Since the closure of this river floodplain quarry scheme, the Gunlake Quarry and the nearby Peppertree, Lynwood and Ardmore Park Quarries have become even more important sources of quarry products, given their reasonable proximity and convenient transport links to the Greater Sydney Region.