The Hills scores 32/100 on Lifestyle & Amenity while lobbying for state-funded metro and schools
The Hills Shire posts an overall 49/100 for 2023-24 and a Lifestyle & Amenity score 19 points below the NSW average — yet its election wishlist focuses on state infrastructure rather than local amenity gaps.
The Hills Shire Council scored 49 out of 100 overall for the 2023-24 reporting year, placing it below the NSW state average of 51 and in the bottom half of the state at equal 74th of 128 councils. Within its metropolitan peer group, the council sits at 21 of 34. Those numbers matter because the council is simultaneously running a public campaign demanding state-funded metro extensions and new schools — a wishlist that implicitly assumes local delivery is handled. The data says otherwise.
The standout weakness is Lifestyle & Amenity, where The Hills scored just 32 for 2023-24 — 19 points below the NSW average of 51. For a growth-corridor council with the demographic profile and rate base of the Shire, this is the single most damning figure in the scorecard. Parks, libraries, recreation and public domain outcomes are being delivered at a level that trails most of metropolitan Sydney. Community Services tells a similar story at 38 for 2023-24, 13 points short of the state average. Before ratepayers accept the framing that Macquarie Street is to blame for the Shire's growing pains, they are entitled to ask why two of the four dimensions the council directly controls are this far behind the pack.
The counter-narrative lives in Sustainability, where The Hills scored 69 for 2023-24 — 18 points above the NSW average of 51 and the clear bright spot in the profile. Core Operations landed at 57, six points above the state benchmark. Together these suggest a financially healthy organisation with the balance-sheet capacity to invest. The problem is not structural weakness; it is allocation. A council scoring 69 on Sustainability and 57 on Core Operations has no excuse for a 32 on Lifestyle & Amenity. The money and the operational competence are there. The amenity outcomes are not.
That gap — 37 points between the council's best dimension (Sustainability, 69) and its worst (Lifestyle & Amenity, 32) in the same 2023-24 year — is the real story the election wishlist obscures. Lobbying for a Metro extension is cheap politics; it costs the council nothing and shifts accountability upward. Lifting a Lifestyle & Amenity score from 32 toward the state average of 51 requires the council to spend its own capacity on open space, town centres and recreation facilities that residents actually use day to day. Those are decisions the Shire can make without waiting for a state cabinet reshuffle.
There is also a sequencing argument. If Community Services is already running 13 points below the state average at 38, adding tens of thousands of new residents via rezoning and metro-led density will stretch that figure further, not improve it. The council's own 2023-24 scorecard is the strongest available evidence that absorptive capacity is already strained. State infrastructure may be necessary, but it is not sufficient — and it will not fix a 32 on amenity.
For ratepayers in Castle Hill, Baulkham Hills, Rouse Hill and Kellyville, the practical read is this: the Shire is financially solid (Sustainability 69, 2023-24) and operationally competent (Core Operations 57, 2023-24), but is under-delivering on the lived experience of the place (Lifestyle & Amenity 32, Community Services 38, both 2023-24). The next budget, not the next state election, is where that gets fixed.
Compare The Hills against other metro growth councils using our compare councils tool, see where it sits on the interactive map, or review the full council rankings. The full 2023-24 scorecard for The Hills Shire is where the wishlist should be benchmarked.
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