Development in Broken Hill and Far West

NSW

Building approvals, live development applications and major projects across the Broken Hill and Far West statistical area — covering Broken Hill and Central Darling.

SA3 10502 Rest of NSW 19,817 residents 2 statistical areas
Approved · FY25 11 dwellings approved
vs 5-yr average 10 average approvals a year
In the queue 18 live applications
Major projects 2 committed or under construction
Data Sources ABSCouncil planning portals ABS to June 2026 · Refreshed ABS QuickStats SA3 10502 How we calculate this

The Pipeline Development Pipeline in Broken Hill and Far West

1 Proposed 18 applications in assessment Leading · to June 2026 See applications ↓
2 Approved 11 dwellings approved in 2024-25, or 0.06 per 100 existing dwellings a year Official · ABS to June 2026 See approvals ↓
3 Building 2 major projects committed or under construction Forward · completions to 2028+ See projects ↓
4 Delivered 241 new addresses verified since the 2021 Census, up 2.1% on the existing base Actual · to June 2026 Where it landed ↓
In the 2024-25 financial year the ABS recorded 11 dwelling approvals across Broken Hill and Far West. Right now, 18 development applications are before the 2 councils covering the area. AreaSearch tracks 2 major projects here that are committed or under construction, the largest being Silver City Energy Storage Centre at an estimated $652m. On the ground, 241 new addresses have been verified since the 2021 Census — growth of 2.1% on the existing address base.

These four figures are deliberately not added together. An application, an approval and a project under construction are often the same building at three points in its life, measured by three different bodies with three different lags. Read them as a sequence, not a total.

Approved Building Approvals in Broken Hill and Far West

What councils and certifiers have formally permitted — the ABS series, published about four months in arrears.

Approvals are running at 0.06 per 100 existing dwellings a year, well below the New South Wales rate of 0.59. Development here remains overwhelmingly detached: houses account for 83% of recent approvals. That is a clear shift toward density — the five-year average is 92% houses. The mix being approved closely matches what is already standing — 92% houses against 95% of existing homes. The average approved dwelling is valued at $494,000 in construction cost.

Dwelling units approved each financial year. The dashed line is the five-year average of 10.

How intensively is it building?

Dwelling approvals a year per 100 existing dwellings.

Broken Hill and Far West 0.06
New South Wales 0.59
Australia 0.71

What is here, and what is coming

Detached houses as a share of existing homes, against the share of recent approvals.

Existing homes (2021 Census) 95%
Approved, last 5 years 92%
Approved, latest year 83%
Detached houses Apartments, townhouses & other

Approvals mix by year

Share of each year’s approvals.

2022
2023
2024
2025
2024-25
$6.2m
Residential work approved
2024-25
$28.9m
Commercial work approved
construction cost
$494,000
Average value per approved dwelling
last two years
1,664
Residents per approval

Supply & Demand Is Broken Hill and Far West Building Enough Homes?

The same approvals, measured against the population they have to house.

Broken Hill and Far West approves about 0.5 new dwellings a year for every 1,000 residents.

Growth against supply since the Census

People added for every new address verified, against the size of an average local household.

Not enough recent growth or address data to compare for this area.

Approval rate against projected need

Dwellings a year: what is currently being approved, against what the 2041 population projection implies.

0.5

dwellings approved a year per 1,000 residents. No population projection is published for this area.

ProposedLEADING · to June 2026 Development Applications in Broken Hill and Far West

What is being asked for right now — applications collected from council planning portals, before any of it reaches the ABS series above. AreaSearch tracks applications of material scale; routine minor works such as signage and fencing changes are not carried, so these are not counts of every application lodged. 8 of them carry an AreaSearch analyst assessment — look for the Analysed marker in the search below.

AreaSearch tracks 153 development applications of material scale lodged with councils across Broken Hill and Far West, the most recent in June 2026. 18 of them are still in assessment. The biggest categories in the queue by value are commercial, childcare and industrial.

Estimated value of applications by development type. This is the clearest single picture of what kind of place Broken Hill and Far West is being asked to become. A further 1 application sit across 1 smaller category, too few to plot.

Where the applications stand

As reported by the council. Highlighted rows are applications still in assessment.

Determined 115
Under Assessment 11
Additional Information Requested 9
Approved 9
Withdrawn 7
Cancelled 2

2 applications are still marked under assessment but were lodged more than 18 months ago. Councils often leave determined or abandoned applications open in their feeds, so they are counted here but excluded from the live queue above.

By local government area

Applications on record within each council area that overlaps Broken Hill and Far West. This counts applications inside this statistical area only — it is not a total for the council.

Broken Hill 132
Central Darling 20

Recent applications in Broken Hill and Far West

By estimated cost of works, as lodged. Estimates are the applicant’s own figures and are not verified by AreaSearch.

Erection of a new child care centre, community health service facility, driveways and hardstand Broken Hill · Additional Information Requested · lodged Dec 2025
$8.7m

BuildingFORWARD Major Projects & Infrastructure in Broken Hill and Far West

What is funded and moving — the projects large enough to change how Broken Hill and Far West works, ranked by committed value and how close they are to delivery.

AreaSearch tracks 2 current projects across Broken Hill and Far West. The largest is Silver City Energy Storage Centre at an estimated $652m, due by 2028. That breaks down as 2 approved and awaiting a start. The pipeline is weighted toward energy.
Silver City Energy Storage Centre
Approved $652m by 2028

Silver City Energy Storage Centre

The Silver City Energy Storage Centre is a 200 MW / 1,600 MWh Advanced Compressed Air Energy Storage (A-CAES) facility being developed by Hydrostor at a disused mine site on the northeast outskirts of Broken…

Broken Hill

Broken Hill North Mine Project
Approved $150m

Broken Hill North Mine Project

State Significant Development for recommencement of underground mining operations at the Broken Hill North Mine. The North Mine Deeps resource contains 3.7 million tonnes at 11.3% zinc, 13.5% lead and 219 g/t…

Broken Hill

Approvals Pipeline Development Applications in Broken Hill and Far West

Development applications around Broken Hill and Far West

Development approvals is a new addition to AreaSearch. We’re actively expanding council coverage and refining the dataset — details and statuses for some councils may be partial. Check back regularly for the latest pipeline.
Applications
In the local catchment
Est. Value
Where disclosed
Under Assessment
Awaiting determination
Determined
Approved or decided
Approvals pipeline Status, location, timing and project scale

Loading development applications…

Lodged Address Description Type Distance Status

SOURCE: Planning portals and council registers, compiled by AreaSearch. Distance & bearing measured from the suburb midpoint.

ProfessionalPRO Development Map for Broken Hill and Far West

Applications and major projects plotted where they are actually proposed, with the 10 projects AreaSearch tracks here on their own tab — filterable by type, delivery stage, area and committed value. To search every application on record rather than this sample, use the section above.

Distribution Where Development Is Happening in Broken Hill and Far West

Broken Hill and Far West covers 2 statistical areas. Follow any of them through for a full profile of population, housing, sales and amenity at local scale.
Map builder

Each area below opens a map builder on its own page — a tool for putting a map and a table into a report. Pick the place types you want plotted (schools, supermarkets, medical, child care, transport and the rest of what AreaSearch holds), add development applications as their own layer, drop your own points, then recolour, renumber and export the result as a table or CSV. A this area only toggle clips everything to the boundary you are looking at. Searches are charged against your credit balance — 1 credit per 40 results from AreaSearch data — and setting filters costs nothing until you search. The builder works on one suburb-sized area at a time, which is why it opens per area rather than across the whole of Broken Hill and Far West.

Broken Hill area profile

No separate approvals series published
132 applications on record
Build a map

Far West area profile

No separate approvals series published
21 applications on record · 231 new addresses since 2021
Build a map

Planning Authorities Councils Covering Broken Hill and Far West

Broken Hill and Far West spans 2 local government areas — Broken Hill and Central Darling. Applications here are assessed by whichever of those councils the site falls within. AreaSearch publishes development figures at ABS statistical boundaries rather than council boundaries. That is deliberate: the ABS issues a separate official building-approvals series for local government areas, and totals built up from statistical areas would not match it. Reporting at SA3 keeps every figure on this page reconcilable with the published ABS series.
Local government areaShare of Broken Hill and Far WestApplications on recordRegister read to
Broken Hill 91% of residents 132 June 2026
Central Darling 9.0% of residents 20 May 2026

Compare Nearby Development Hubs

The same view of building approvals, applications and major projects for areas neighbouring Broken Hill and Far West.

Data & Method Sources & Method for Broken Hill and Far West

The four tenses, and what each one can tell you

Proposed — development applications
Collected from council planning portals. The earliest signal available, but the least certain: many applications are amended, withdrawn or refused, values are the applicant’s own estimate, and coverage varies by council. This is a curated set, not the full council feed: AreaSearch carries applications of material scale and does not track routine minor works such as signage, fencing or small alterations, so the counts here are lower than a council’s own total lodgement figure and should not be compared with it. Applications still shown as under assessment more than 18 months after lodgement are reported separately and kept out of the live-queue figures: the age profile of open applications is sharply split between a genuine queue under a year old and a long tail of records councils never closed. Not every state publishes a cost of works — Queensland, the Northern Territory and the ACT publish none at all — so on those pages applications are counted rather than valued and no dollar figure is shown rather than a partial one. Treated here as a snapshot of the current queue only — AreaSearch does not chart application counts over time, because the history reflects when each portal was collected rather than when development happened.
Approved — ABS building approvals
The official series, aggregated to SA3 from ABS building approvals data, currently published to June 2026. Counts dwelling units approved, not buildings and not completions. The most recent financial year is annualised from nine months of data wherever it appears and is labelled as such.
Building — major projects
Projects tracked individually by AreaSearch from Infrastructure Australia, state infrastructure agencies, developer disclosures and council records. Values are estimates and delivery dates are targets. Ranked on this page by committed value and delivery stage rather than by distance.
Delivered — verified new addresses
New residential addresses verified in the national address register since the 2021 Census. This is the closest available measure of what has actually been built, though address creation can lead occupation and lags construction. It is not a completions count.

Boundaries

Broken Hill and Far West is Statistical Area Level 3 10502 in the ABS Australian Statistical Geography Standard (2021 edition), made up of 2 Statistical Areas Level 2. It has an estimated 19,817 residents, -0.3% since the 2021 Census.

Currency

MeasureSourceTo
Dwelling approvals, five-year average ABS / AreaSearch June 2026
House share of approvals ABS / AreaSearch June 2026
Residents per approval ABS / AreaSearch June 2026
Value per approved dwelling ABS / AreaSearch June 2026
Commercial work approved ABS / AreaSearch June 2026
Verified new addresses since the Census Address register / AreaSearch May 2026
Development applications Council planning portals June 2026
Major projects Infrastructure Australia / state agencies / AreaSearch Ongoing

Figures on this page are read live from the AreaSearch database each time it loads, so they update as soon as a source does.

Development in Broken Hill and Far West — common questions

How many new dwellings were approved in Broken Hill and Far West?

The ABS recorded 11 dwelling approvals across Broken Hill and Far West in the 2024-25 financial year, against a five-year average of 10 a year.

How many development applications are lodged in Broken Hill and Far West?

AreaSearch tracks 153 development applications of material scale across Broken Hill and Far West — routine minor works such as signage and fencing are not included, so this is not a count of every application lodged, of which 18 remain in assessment. Applications are assessed within the Broken Hill and Central Darling local government areas. The most recent application in our data was lodged in June 2026.

What major projects are planned for Broken Hill and Far West?

AreaSearch tracks 2 current major projects in Broken Hill and Far West. The largest include Silver City Energy Storage Centre and Broken Hill North Mine Project.

Which council covers Broken Hill and Far West?

Broken Hill and Far West is an ABS Statistical Area Level 3. It is covered by parts of 2 local government areas — Broken Hill and Central Darling. AreaSearch publishes development figures at ABS statistical boundaries rather than council boundaries, so they reconcile with the official ABS series.

Is Broken Hill and Far West growing faster than the rest of New South Wales?

On development approvals, Broken Hill and Far West is adding new dwellings more slowly than New South Wales as a whole — 0.06 approvals per 100 existing dwellings a year against the state figure of 0.59.

How current is this development data?

ABS building approvals are published with a lag of roughly four months; this page carries the series to June 2026. Development applications are collected from council planning portals and refresh continuously, with the most recent application here lodged in June 2026. Major project records are reviewed on an ongoing basis. Each section carries its own currency label so the four are never confused.

Development data is provided for general information. Estimated values, dwelling counts and delivery dates come from the lodging or delivering party and are not independently verified by AreaSearch. Confirm anything material with the relevant council or agency before relying on it.