Liverpool, New South Wales

Liverpool is a suburb in south-western Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Liverpool is located 32 kilometres south-west of the Sydney central business district, and is the administrative centre of the local government area of the City of Liverpool. It was identified in the New South Wales Government's Sydney Metropolitan Strategy as a Regional City, placing it alongside Parramatta and Penrith as one of the major centres in the Greater Sydney area. Liverpool is colloquially known as 'Livo'.

History
Liverpool is one of the oldest urban settlements in Australia, founded in 1810 as an agricultural centre by Governor Lachlan Macquarie. He named it after Robert Banks Jenkinson, Earl of Liverpool, who was then the Secretary of State for the Colonies.

Liverpool is at the head of navigation of the Georges River and combined with the Great Southern Railway from Sydney to Melbourne reaching Liverpool in the late 1850s, Liverpool became a major agricultural and transportation centre as the land in the district was very productive.

Until the 1950s, Liverpool was still a satellite town with an agricultural economy based on poultry farming and market gardening. However the tidal surge of urban sprawl which engulfed the rich flatlands west of Sydney known as the Cumberland Plain soon reached Liverpool, and it became an outer suburb of metropolitan Sydney with a strong working-class presence and manufacturing facilities. The Liverpool area also became renowned for its vast Housing Commission estates housing thousands of low-income families after the slum clearance and urban renewal programs in inner-city Sydney in the 1960s.

The following buildings are listed on the Register of the National Estate:


 * Technical College (formerly Liverpool Hospital), probably designed by Francis Greenway, circa 1825-30
 * Former Court House, corner of Bigge and Moore Streets, extended circa 1855
 * Collingwood (also known as Captain Bunker's Cottage), Birkdale Crescent, circa 1810, extended circa 1860
 * Liverpool Dam, Georges River, built 1836, designed by David Lennox
 * St Luke's Anglican church, designed by Francis Greenway, 1818

Commercial Area
Liverpool is currently undergoing a rapid transformation into a major CBD in its own right. It has been earmarked by the state government in the coming years to be a major regional area in Sydney. It is currently the major city centre in South Western Sydney. The city centre has a Hoddle Grid layout with many little laneways and arcades, similar to that of Melbourne. The main strip is Macquarie Street which contains numerous small cafes. In recent times the extension of the Westfield shopping centre has seen many new fashion stores come in.

The main shopping area is centred on Macquarie Street, with Westfield Liverpool, a major shopping centre at the northern end. The northern end of the city has been zoned for high density residential apartments. The southern end of the city is zoned for high density commercial developments. Liverpool is also home to the largest public lending library in Australia, a large teaching hospital, two technical colleges and many shopping centres and office buildings. The private hospital operator Healthscope owns the Sydney Southwest Private Hospital in Liverpool.

Liverpool Plaza, located south of Westfield Shopping Centre, was featured in Vanessa Amorosi's 1999 music video for her single Have A Look.

Industries include a large cable factory, a telephone manufacturer, pharmaceutical laboratories and cold storage plants.

Climate
Liverpool, like most of the Sydney western suburbs, falls in the humid subtropical climate and is a few degrees warmer than Sydney CBD. If the weather is 27 in the city, in Liverpool it could reach as high as 33. It's very common for summers to reach over 30 degrees Celsius. Summers are hot and humid. Winters are mild. Though, nights are slightly cooler than Sydney's.

Transport
Liverpool is well served by roads such as the Hume Highway (also known as Liverpool Road), the M5 motorway, the Westlink M7 motorway.

Liverpool railway station has reasonable services to Sydney CBD and Campbelltown as well as two morning peak services to Parramatta on most weekdays. The Liverpool to Parramatta transitway provides a bus-only route for buses.

Churches
St Lukes Anglican Church, located in the city centre across the road from Westfield Liverpool, is the oldest Anglican church in Australia. All Saints Catholic Church in George St is located with the All Saints schools. St Raphael, Nickolas and Irene Greek Orthodox Church is in Forbes Street.

Schools
There are three public primary schools within the suburb of Liverpool: Liverpool, Liverpool West and Marsden Road. Liverpool Boys and Liverpool Girls are the two public secondary schools. They are located next door to each other in Forbes Street. In addition to this are Mainsbridge School which caters to children with intellectual disabilities and Liverpool Hospital School for children hospitalised for lengthy periods.

Private schools include All Saints Primary, All Saints Boys College, All Saints Girls College and Al Amanah College.

Post secondary education is catered to with the South Western College of TAFE, Macarthur Community College, Liverpool U3A: School for Seniors, University of Western Sydney English Language Centre and the School of Arts in Macquarie Street.

Parks
There are many open spaces within the city centre, including botanical parks and sporting facilities. Bigge Park on the east side of the city features a War Memorial while Pioneer Memorial Park to the north has a historical cemetery. Woodward Park to the west is the main sporting precinct containing a number of outdoor playing fields and the Whitlam Leisure Centre, hosting a swimming pool and a 3000-seat indoor sports stadium. Other notable sports facilities within the suburb of Liverpool include Collimore Park (netball) and Paciullo Park (soccer and touch football).

Media
Liverpool is served by a full time radio station 89.3FM 2GLF which broadcasts local information, music and ethnic programming. It is one of the first FM radio stations setup in the early 80s.

Liverpool has two newspapers, the Liverpool Leader and Liverpool Champion published each Wednesday.

Sporting teams
The Sydney Ice Dogs play in the Australian Ice Hockey League and are based at the Liverpool Catholic Club. Other prominent local teams include Fairfield-Liverpool Cricket Club which plays in the Sydney Grade Cricket competition, Liverpool City Netball, which has participated successfully in many State and representative competitions, and FC Bossy Liverpool which plays in the New South Wales Super League. The West Sydney Razorbacks basketball team used to play out of the Gough Whitlam Centre while they were in the NBL.

Demographics
According to the 2006 census conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, Liverpool had a population of 21,318 with 55.5% of the population born overseas including Iraq (6%), Croatia (7.8%), India (4%) and Bosnia and Herzegovina (3.4%). Apart from English, languages spoken at home were Arabic (12%), Serbian (12%), Hindi (4.2%). The religious affiliations were Catholicism (24%), Eastern Orthodox religion (16%), Islam (12%) and Anglican (7%).

Over half the dwellings in Liverpool were apartments (52%) and a high proportion were being rented (46%). The average rent of $180 was a little lower than the national average ($190) but the average household income of $760 per week was substantially lower the national average of $1027.

Notable residents
The following people were born in Liverpool
 * Politician Craig Knowles
 * Cricketer Michael Clarke
 * Entertainer Nathan Foley, a member of Hi-5
 * Poet Jennifer Harrison
 * Rugby league players Vic Hey, Brett Hodgson, Anthony Minichiello, Pat Richards and Isaac De Gois

Politics
The suburb of Liverpool is split in its representation at all three levels of government with Hoxton Park Road the divider in each case. At the local level, Liverpool is part of the City of Liverpool, which is divided into two wards, the North Ward on the north side of Hoxton Park Road and the South Ward on the other side. Each ward elects five councillors and the council currently consists of four Labor councillors, three Liberals, two members of the Liverpool Community Independents Team (LCIT) and one other independent councillor. There is also a directly elected mayor, Labor's Wendy Waller.

For New South Wales state elections, the north side of Liverpool is located in the Electoral district of Liverpool, held by Paul Lynch, while the south side is in the Electoral district of Macquarie Fields, held by Andrew McDonald. Both men are members of the Australian Labor Party. Federally, the north side of Liverpool is located in the Division of Hughes held by Danna Vale of the Liberal Party of Australia. The south side is part of the Division of Werriwa, held by Labor's Chris Hayes.

The table at right illustrates recent election results in the Liverpool area by combining results from each of the five booths located in the suburb of Liverpool. The results indicate the suburb is a safe Labor area with the Labor primary vote well above 50% at both the last state and federal elections.