Originally cobbled together from a collection of arterial roads, it has been slowly upgraded and lengthened in sections over the years to a motorway-standard bypass through the inner western suburbs of Newcastle.

[2] The first, and southernmost, section is the West Charlestown Bypass, a 6.5-kilometre-long (4.0 mi) freeway standard road, which commences at the intersection with Pacific Highway at Bennetts Green and heads in a northerly direction.

The concept of the Newcastle Inner City Bypass emerged from the decision to route the Sydney to Newcastle Freeway west of Lake Macquarie in the mid-1970s: up to that point the freeway was proposed east of Lake Macquarie and involved corridor reservations for high-standard bypasses of Swansea, Belmont and Charlestown.

[8] The Newcastle Inner City Bypass was not built in a contiguous fashion, with separate sections opened slowly at different times over the following 50 years.

In the late 1960s, the Department of Main Roads proposed to construct a major elevated roadway as part of this section, which would have required a strip acquisition of Blackbutt Reserve between Carnley Avenue and McCaffrey Drive.

The work to be completed as part of that contract was for digging a cutting where the Sandgate Road bridge has been built over the bypass and filling two other areas, including constructing retaining walls and relocating water mains.

[12] On 28 May 2012 Roads & Maritime Services terminated its contract with Reed Constructions which had been placed in liquidation, and remaining works were completed by Thiess, the prime contractor for the Hunter Expressway.