The Hunter Economic Zone, or HEZ, offers 900 hectares of zoned developable land enveloped within 2,300 hectares of public recreational / conservation reserve land that acts as an environmental buffer zone. HEZ is Australia's largest contiguous industrial estate and is located 1 hours north of Sydney's northern suburbs by car and 30 minutes west of Newcastle.

Woodhead is designing a Development Master Plan to create the vision for the development, establishing principles for the DA and DCP and guidelines for roads and services infrastructure. This vision will govern future uses, built form and landscape design.

The vision for HEZ is to create an inspirational world-class industrial estate to increase employment for the Hunter region and beyond in an ecologically sustainable manner.

An Ecological Constraints Master Plan (ECMP) was created using GPS/GIS technology. The ECMP is a comprehensive audit of plant and animal life and their habitats within the developable area of 900ha. This will minimise unnecessary environmental stress, whilst enabling authorities to readily determine and then approve plans for operation of business and industry at HEZ.

The ECMP has been complimented by Woodhead's design and Sustainability Index, which was used to prepare a range of sustainable targets to govern the whole project.