Industrial lands support trade, jobs, and essential services, and play a key role in housing delivery, manufacturing, and the energy transition.
Many parts of NSW are facing a shortfall in industrial land, leading to rising costs, low vacancy rates, and businesses relocating interstate. This shortfall could affect the delivery of key NSW Government priorities, including delivering homes under the National Housing Accord, advancing the clean energy transformation to meet net zero targets, and supporting the growth of local manufacturing.
The NSW Government released the Industrial Lands Action Plan in January 2025. Action 1 was to deliver a statewide policy for industrial lands.
The draft Statewide Policy for Industrial Lands is now on exhibition.
The draft policy responds to feedback from industry, councils, and stakeholders and will:
- establish a consistent, evidence-based framework for planning and protecting industrial lands across NSW
- introduce a framework for industrial lands to be categorised as state, regionally and locally significant industrial lands based on their spatial contribution to economic activity and their significance in a network of industrial lands
- support better planning for new and intensified industrial areas.
The draft policy includes two technical notes providing practical guidance for implementation of the policy.
The draft policy can be reviewed alongside the draft Sydney Plan, also now on exhibition, which applies the draft industrial lands categorisation in the Sydney region. This includes categorisation of Sydney’s industrial land into state, regionally and locally significant land.
The Statewide Policy for Industrial Lands forms part of broader changes to strategic planning to provide a more equitable, streamlined and consistent approach across the state. A New Approach to Strategic Planning: Discussion Paper is open for feedback.
Watch the overview
To help you understand the strategic planning reforms, we’ve prepared a video overview.
Documents on exhibition
Exhibition documents
Exhibition documents
Have your say
The draft policy is now on exhibition and open for feedback until 5pm, 27 February 2026.
Your feedback will help shape a policy that secures industrial land supply, supports economic growth, and strengthens planning across NSW.
To provide feedback on the draft Statewide Policy for Industrial Lands, please complete the submission form below.
For the Sydney region, draft categorisation is now also on exhibition in the draft Sydney Plan. To provide feedback on draft categorisation in the draft Sydney Plan, please complete the submission form on the draft Sydney Plan page.
For more information
If you have any questions about the draft Statewide Policy for Industrial Lands, please email [email protected]