The record

Most local stories are chapters of something longer: a wharf that has been “about to be redeveloped” for years, a road project measured in decades, a suburb whose growth outruns its services. A news story tells you this week’s chapter. These pages keep the whole book: what is known, when it happened, and where each fact comes from.

Record pages are deliberately allowed to be short. They state what we know, cite it, and grow as the record does. When a page says “we don’t know yet”, that is the honest state of the public record, not a gap we forgot to fill.

• What’s being built

  The index page: every major project we track across both cities, with its current stage and its record page. Start here.

• Queens Wharf

  Newcastle harbour’s 1988 Bicentennial landmark: the fire, the empty years, the demolition, and the rebuild decision to come.

• Newcastle Arena and the Entertainment Centre

  A venue built for five years that lasted 34, and the $499 million plan to replace it at Broadmeadow.

• M1 Pacific Motorway extension

  The Hunter’s biggest road project: 15 km, $2.24 billion, and the end of the Hexham bottleneck.

• Morisset growth corridor

  The fastest-growing corner of Lake Macquarie: the place strategy, the population forecasts, and the push for services to match.

• The Wickham

  A proposed 148-metre tower beside Newcastle Interchange, on a site that has already swallowed one failed scheme.