He said yesterday much of NSW had been sidelined by former NSW premier Nick Greiner’s 20-year vision for main projects across the state.

“I’m just surprised about how often we have to fight for every outcome and this plan shows it will be no different in future,” he said.

“I’m tired of seeing regional projects being an afterthought and they need to feature far more prominently in future plans, state or federally.”

The report, First Things First, gives a five, 10 and 20-year strategy and recommendations for the development of NSW between 2012 and 2032.

More than $9 billion worth of priority projects have been outlined for regional NSW in the report, with a focus on ensuring mining communities are linked efficiently to ports and markets.

Disappointingly, the report determined the New England Highway north of the Hunter Valley handled “the road transport task effectively”, meaning no extra funds for an upgrade.

It has, however outlined a $300 million “Bridges for the Bush” program to upgrade rural bridges in order to boost freight productivity.

That program received the backing of NSW Farmers president Fiona Simson, who urged the state government to implement the report's findings as soon as possible.

“Currently there are 249 bridges that are unsuitable for large vehicles, which are limiting farmers and others benefiting from more efficient transport vehicles,” she said. “People in regional NSW deserve high-quality roads, including safe and well-maintained timber bridges.”

Infrastructure NSW chief executive Paul Broad said improvements to regional services and connectivity were vital to the state’s future.

“Regional NSW contributes around a quarter of the state’s economic output and provides the produce, commodities and resources that supply Sydney and the globe, but it has been affected by the two-speed economy as mining has boomed,” he said. “NSW has to avoid developing urban and regional infrastructure in isolation. 

“We need is better links between city and country.” 

The largest project proposed for Armidale is the redevelopment of the hospital. Hunter New England Health has the highest number of available beds per capita of any health service in the state.

Mr Torbay said: “One of the major issues for regional areas is maintaining and improving the road and bridge network and it was disappointing to see that, apart from funding for coal communities, this area of need was almost completely ignored in this plan.”

In his introduction to the report, Mr Greiner said there had been “unforgiveable wasted opportunities” to build infrastructure across the state in the past.

But he said he was looking afresh at what the state needed  to make it globally competitive.