Westmead Suburb Review

Summary: A suburb that leans towards the practical over the pretty, Westmead in Sydney’s mid-west benefits largely from two major factors that add significant levels of convenience to it for daily living – its physical location, and its excellent public transport connections.

As a satellite suburb of Parramatta, it has immediate proximity to a wide array of amenities & employment opportunities (including at its own significant medical facilities for medical workers) just a short train ride away. It also makes commutes into the Sydney CBD proper highly viable as well, with multiple modes of transport to choose from.

As a result, it makes for a flexible suburb that serves as a solid rung for first home buyers in particular looking to get a ‘foot on the ladder’ due to its high volume of still-quite-affordable apartments, and ability to pursue career opportunities.

It’s reasonably safe & boasts good schooling options considering the price, too; however it also has several downsides. These include a relative lack of dining/entertainment, a mediocre traffic situation for drivers, and a general lack of upkeep/cleanliness in many spots – with frequent litter, and many of its detached houses un-maintained/renovated. Such houses are also selling for increasingly-high prices, even without having had a facelift.

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In present-day Sydney, it’s pretty much an unavoidable fact that you typically can choose two out of three of the following – price, size, location – when picking somewhere to live, without breaking the bank.

While this is even more true when applied to those suburbs closer to Sydney’s CBD, there are still some pockets around where you can avoid this somewhat… without having to compromise with a huge daily commute time in return.

For those who are looking for a place to live with a price that (by Sydney standards) won’t cause some immediate mental trauma, nor lead to you living in a crime-ridden cesspool, several of the various satellite suburbs around Parramatta remain well worth considering as a result.

Westmead is one such suburb, and – while it’s not the prettiest place in the world – it provides several clear advantages over similar choices in the same kind of price range. While it comes with some negatives, its handful of positives may just check the specific boxes you yourself are looking for.

First of all is obviously its location. While many people for some reason still seem to act like the greater Parramatta area is a veritable world away from ‘true’ Sydney, in the present day this really isn’t the case at all.

Westmead sits just to the west of Parramatta proper, and boasts levels of connectivity that put it much closer to the city on a ‘practical’ basis than it may seem. This is simply an example of suburb planning & infrastructure done right.

It has been built out with ample public transport connections in various forms, with denser housing around its main train station and dotted mostly with roomier mid-density lowrise buildings rather than shoebox highrise towers (although some of those are starting to creep in as well, and there’s cranes-aplenty dotting the suburb nowadays).

As a result of its connections, train trips from Westmead can have you into Central in around 30 minutes of a morning. For perspective, that’s equivalent to suburbs such as Lindfield (north), Oatley (south), Drummoyne or Hurlstone Park (inner-ish) and various other spots as far as commute time goes… for a fraction of the price, particularly as far as apartment living goes.

Obviously Westmead mostly isn’t as physically beautiful as some of these places – we’ll get to that later – but in terms of time spent/saved of a workday, that’s certainly not nothing.

Likewise, while there are some other suburbs in inner-ish Sydney around Westmead’s price range, many of them come bundled in return with higher crime rates too, which makes them far less appealing for those wanting to raise families in particular.

Westmead thus falls in pretty much of a sweet spot as far as the price:commute time ratio goes.

It’s decked out with standard heavy rail that sees a relatively high volume of services, with several lines passing through it meaning wait times for the next train are never too long.

It’s also had the recent addition of the Light Rail which opened up extra options for both getting around within the suburb itself, as well as connecting on through up to Carlingford in the north.

Travelling by road, it also boasts very good bus connectivity centred around its main T-Way intersection in front of its Western Sydney Uni campus, which can have you heading up to places like the Hills (Rouse Hill, Kellyville, etc.) as well as through to Parramatta, Liverpool and various surrounding suburbs.

As if that wasn’t enough, it’s also a designated site for expansion of the Sydney Metro West project which will provide yet another option for pushing through to the CBD and have multiple stops at popular places like Sydney Olympic Park (for events), Burwood & Pyrmont (for dining), and the city itself.

Few other non-CBD suburbs provide more ways to get out of the suburb itself than Westmead does, without having to drive yourself. And that’s a good thing, since otherwise embarking on a road-based commute has you joining the clogged arteries along the Great Western Highway and Hawkesbury Road which suffer like much else of Sydney does during peak hours.

Bad traffic in Westmead is compounded further given it lies right between Parramatta and the highway, has several school zone delays, and has additional layers of hospital traffic (both workers and patients) aiming to get in/out of its medical district. As a result, there’s little reason not to take public transport unless you happen to have a career that specifically requires using your own vehicle.

Like many other Sydney suburbs built around train stations, there’s clear separation between the north and south half of Westmead in terms of overall streetscape. Here it’s even more exaggerated due to recent development – to the point that highlighting what it offers as a suburb basically needs to be broken up into two different sections.

Each side of the suburb are essentially two entirely different places despite ‘technically’ falling under the same suburb borders, as its two separate areas on each side of the track share little in common with one another.

Westmead’s northern portion is the side in which its changes and development have been most drastic. It’s mostly known as a facility-centric suburb for those from elsewhere needing to visit, and it’s this northern half which is the chief reason why.

This is a heavily medically (and care) oriented suburb, not only due to its large hospital offerings, but also due to multiple NDIS and Uniting care facilities calling it home as well.

Westmead’s centrepiece in this regard is obviously the huge Westmead Health Precinct, which is both a large employer in the region and home to multiple crucial medical services for adults & children alike.

The precinct and its parking facilities take up a significant chunk of this north half of the suburb, and it’s home to several major facilities including Westmead Hospital itself, the Children’s Hospital at Westmead, and a ton of medical-adjacent services such as optometry, pathology, research and consulting facilities and more.

There’s also Westmead Private Hospital and various surrounding medical imaging businesses in the suburb’s North West; add all of these up and there’s a reason over 10% of residents of Westmead statistically work in the health/care industries.

This central-northern pocket of the suburb which basically extends down to its Western Sydney University campus along Hawkesbury Road is by far its most modern & cleanest area, with the newer light rail stations in particular adding a dose of still-new shine.

The university’s older wing also adds a slight dash of historic charm to the proceedings.

Newer blocks of highrise apartment buildings which are being constructed can be found here too & will add more housing capacity alongside its transport connections.

This central, more modern part of Westmead is cleaner and more efficient in general, with more modern strips of parkland and a little more upmarket overall; it’s similar to most newer ‘hospital and education’-centric districts you’ll find elsewhere in Sydney and all over Australia. It’s also largely flat & walkable, with decent footpaths, outside of its Northwest portion which slopes downhill somewhat.

This part of Westmead is also home to its mixed-zoned strip along Hawkesbury Rd featuring a blend of small shops with lowrise apartments on top, as well as other services such as small scale dining/takeaway, chemist, convenience stores etc.

They’re sufficient to get by in a pinch, but it’s not exactly much of an amenity-rich area and sums up a key part of what Westmead is currently lacking in. Westmead as a whole is not much of a dining suburb; it’s fairly lacking in restaurants and there’s not even much of an Indian food scene as you might expect in the area compared to the likes of, say, Wentworthville.

Elsewhere in Westmead’s north-western pocket there are some fairly large housing commission complexes adjacent along and off Darcy & Bridge Roads.

As always, these add a smidgeon of crime to the area and come with associated messiness/litter. This concentrated area is the prime reason why Westmead is home to nearly 10% of its residential as public housing in total.

They’re a necessary part of providing housing for all socio-economic demographics, but they still bring both these as well as their visually-fairly-ugly brutalist design & barbed-wire fences along with them, which don’t make for the most appealing streetscape.

This is also where you can find Westmead’s token small Coles supermarket & shopping centre complex, as well as multiple clusters of slightly-newer low-rise units. There’s plenty of supply here, and typically lots of unit inventory available for rent, which helps keep costs down somewhat.

Railway Parade around its train station also provides a small shopping centre in Westmead Village, which comes with a Friendly Grocer smaller supermarket and a couple of various small bakeries/food shops.

It’s also where you’ll find its sole watering hole in Westmead Tavern, a fairly standard small-scale and semi-dated pub that offers decent-enough food and all your typical pokies as well as a decent outside-dining area.

And that’s about as far as ‘entertainment’ options in Westmead go. If you’re looking for anything more exciting you’ll have to either head up into Northmead or into Parramatta proper, whether that’s for more things to see and do for both adults and kids alike.

This makes for a suburb in which young adults in particular are likely to find boring; it’s pretty much exclusively going to be appealing for families who can take their kids out to play in the park for sport or a playground, rather than any other actual man-made activities.

On the plus side, Westmead again benefits from its proximity to Parramatta due to bordering directly alongside the huge Parramatta Park.

This is a pretty enormous space that comes with ample benefits such as room for pets to run around, a large playgrounds for kids, plenty of picnic tables, toilets, cricket pitches, walking pathways & more, as well as the water of the Parramatta River. There’s also the capacity to attend events at CommBank Stadium nearby.

Westmead as a whole is otherwise not the greenest suburb in the world outside of Parramatta Park itself.

Spots like Shannon’s Paddock or Milson Park are adequate but fairly mediocre and not-too-well-maintained examples of suburban parkland, and are also surrounded by fairly heavily-trafficked roads so are not exactly peaceful either. However, again, at least they tend to come with good walking paths throughout that are nice for walking the dog (or yourself).

Some of this ambient noise also plays out in other ways as well. There’s construction disruption while the Metro is being/continues to be built and the associated emanating noise that comes along with it. In addition, the suburb’s north side also experiences added noise due to sounds associated with its hospital district – think ambulances, medical helicopters and the like.

Directly on either side of Westmead’s station are plenty of older, low-rise brick apartment blocks which are solidly-built but, not the most well-maintained in the world. They’re perpetually covered in laundry draped over their balconies, and some of the streets and nature strips in front tend to be dotted with litter.

Combine this with the decent level of tree cover due to these parts of Westmead being mature by now, and it creates a bit of a dingy, unkempt atmosphere.

It’s not the most gorgeous spot but may still be a decent choice as a reasonably affordable way for first home buyers to get their foot in the door for a few years, especially considering these lower rise blocks have a decent land component versus newer high rises.

Westmead is quite a dense suburb overall, with over 75% of the suburb’s housing consisting of flats or apartments. Outside of a major pocket on its south side, there’s relatively few detached houses and most that do exist are also original-condition & often un-renovated with only the occasional knockdown/rebuild having been completed.

However they’re still worth a pretty penny in the present day due to their combination of solid, older brick builds, along with fairly generous block sizes.

Westmead’s south side is also a more pleasant & established streetscape in general. There’s pretty nice levels of mature tree cover, as well as the occasional large palm that gives off vibes similar to the likes of Croydon Park in the Inner West.

This southern half also boasts more parkland interspersed throughout. MJ Bennett Reserve is a nice, open, park with half basketball court and multiple little playground facilities ringed by detached residential homes that gives this pocket more of an upmarket feel.

Sydney Smith Park is quite nice, and offers sporting amenities for soccer & cricket while fringed by houses which provides a communal aspect to the proceedings for those with kids.

Its border with Mays Hill on the south side is also where Sydney Murugan Temple and Cultural Hall – its only real notable landmark – can be found, which is an impressive building architecturally & an important gathering place for a chunk of its local community. Westmead as a suburb is very multicultural as a whole, with a demographic that leans heavily south-Asian; you often won’t hear much English spoken on the streets here by default.

The other appealing aspect of Westmead for families will likely be its schooling options. It’s home to a high-performing and quite popular public school in Westmead Public which consistently achieves strong results in academics, as well as an array of Christian/Catholic options in the likes of Parramatta Marist Highschool (for boys) and Catherine McAuley (for girls), among others.

It’s a high concentration of quality schools for a suburb that’s not really that large as a whole, and caters for a pretty diverse student population.

Combine all of the above, and it’s a pretty solid choice of suburb for smaller families who are content with apartment living, or can compromise with a townhouse as a balance between size/price.

This bleeds over into Westmead’s crime rate & overall safety too. While Westmead sits within reasonable proximity to some other suburbs that have higher crime rates, these are largely separated by the southern highway. However Westmead itself is largely safe, with most of the suburbs surrounding it likewise.

Couple this with Westmead’s lack of “crime-attracting” amenities (e.g: large shopping centres or places that serve alcohol), and really the only crime happens on a small scale emanating from its housing commission pockets and the odd petty crime around its train station. It’s otherwise a safe and unassuming suburb in this regard, which is another obvious positive for those with kids.

There are also newer pockets of – again, functional but fairly generic – townhouses which have been added along and branching off of Hawkesbury Road that can help facilitate this.

Add in some more clusters of newer, highway-adjacent apartments along the main road on its southern border and it opens up a bit more choice in terms of housing options too, outside of its older and more well-worn apartments nearer to the station.

Price-wise, as mentioned Westmead is quite good value for apartments, and less-so for houses. Its current median house price is $1,730,000.00, which is nearly 10% above the Sydney median; that’s a little rich for a suburb that doesn’t really offer above-median quality of life.

Houses here tend to be original-condition and be a little lacking in love as well; many of them could do with a bit of a ‘spit shine’, so if you’re going to buy then you’ll probably have to pay extra for some renovations yourself, adding to the cost.

It’s to such an extent that those houses (or even entire streets) in Westmead that have had some effort put in – such as nicer roads like much of Amos St or Cotswold St – makes them stand out even more.

Apartments, meanwhile are over 30% cheaper than the median for the rest of the city, which indicates being fairly underpriced and is very decent, and suggests a bit of miss-valuation – whether that’s due to a lack of awareness, negative bias about what Westmead actually is in the present day, or any other reason.

This is especially true given some of the older-build units provide much better amounts of floorspace & price per square metre than newer ones elsewhere in Sydney, and are only a few storeys high rather than towering bird cages.

They might require a bit of TLC/renovation to modernise at first, but you can’t make an apartment bigger, so starting with a larger base to work with is always going to help in that regard.

The ability to get a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom unit for that kind of price range & with that kind of commute in Sydney in a building that has at least already stood the test of time is pretty rare, and well worth considering in our opinion.

The Verdict

Westmead in general has very good ‘bones’ as a suburb; if it was just kept up a little better than it currently is, it would be easier to recommend. It has all the core features most would want in a practical suburb for daily life – excellent transport, good schools, not unsafe, logical layout, highway access, etc – perhaps outside of amazing dining or shopping.

Yet its handy location also means you can just drive or hop on the train for a bit and have those in short order anyway. While within its technical borders there’s not that much to do, Parramatta being a few minutes away offsets this somewhat, and helps keep parts of the suburb (notably its southern, lower-density half) less busy and a bit quieter as a result.

It’s just hard to get the feeling that much of it is not maintained as well as it probably deserves to be; the simple effort of local authorities or residents mowing grass or picking up litter more often would go a long way, for example.

That also means there’s plenty of potential for either some major renovations, or complete knock-down rebuilds if you have the money for it, given how large the blocks of land here are for a relatively built up suburb.

It still scores high points for being a good-value suburb for apartments in particular, and its high-quality education facilities combine with this to make it more family-friendly than it may first appear. And obviously, if you’re a medical worker who wants to work ‘close to home’, then it becomes even more appealing as a result.

For those with more limited budgets, Westmead is definitely worth considering if you’re content with unit living, and/or can score one of its relatively limited supply of townhouses. This is because the townhouses here hit that ‘sweet spot’ between relative modernity as well as a bit of land size along with it, and are decent value for money as a result.

Its combination of transport connections/good potential for working in multiple places opens up a huge range of potential for people in a wide array of careers, as you can get basically anywhere from here to another major working hub without having to fight traffic, which is a win in present-day Sydney in itself.

And even if you do choose to fork out extra for a detached house, good luck finding a non-dodgy suburb elsewhere in Sydney with a similar commute time in the same price range. That’s enough to recommend Westmead in and of itself, unless you’re the type who simply must have a strong cafe culture or access to a beach nearby.