A LONG-dormant corner of Maylands will be turned into a $40million aged care facility, and the iconic heritage-listed servo out front will be preserved and turned into an activity room. Built in 1931 and closed nearly 10 years ago, Williamson’s Motor House on Guildford Road is heritage listed for its rare Mediterranean influences and Moorish…

CANDIDATES and voters using sham leases in council elections will be clamped down on as part of major new local government reforms intended to clean up messy and chaotic councils. Local government minister John Carey this week announced the final package of the long-awaited reforms to the creaky 25-year-old Local Government Act 1995. The reforms…

THE State Treasury building will be transformed into an open artists and writer’s studio with a dual residency by artist Tessa MacKay and screenwriter and director Roderick MacKay. For two weeks they’ll be taking over treasury’s “The Mark” venue, which overlooks Stirling Gardens in the Perth CBD, telling stories and chatting with the public while…

THE kids loved the new Wellington Square playground as soon as it opened and now the adult experts have confirmed: Yes, it is fun, with the playground winning two awards at the Australian Institute of Landscape Architecture WA awards. The intergenerational Noongar-influenced “Koolangka Koolangka Waabiny” (Children’s Children Playground) won the landscape award for playspaces and…

Top of the class ADC and the Warburton Group’s vision for the Perth Girls School site have been approved by DevelopmentWA.Girls School plan approved ‘The new Perth Girls School project design will celebrate the site’s rich and important Aborigi-nal and European cultural history’ DEVELOPMENT plans for the major mixed residential, cultural, and entertainment superhub at…

LABOR’S state planning minister Rita Saffioti will intervene in Perth council’s decision to reject a Northbridge homeless drop-in centre’s relocation to James Street. At its May meeting Perth council rejected homeless service provider Ruah’s plan to move the Shenton Street centre a 270m walk away, so it could build a seven-storey women and children’s refuge…

TREE-starved Bayswater council has abandoned aspirations to reach 20 per cent tree canopy cover by 2025 with a majority of councillors deciding it’s unrealistic. Back in 2014 the council voted to set the aspirational target, as it had a paltry 13.2 per cent canopy cover and was one of the least green council areas in…

MENTAL and physical health is at risk if Bayswater continues to lose trees to infill development according to the expert report by UWA’s Australian Urban Design Research Centre. The report used public health data to estimate that about 9.2 per cent of adults in Bayswater are at “high” or “very high” psychological distress. The report…

Mum’s desperate plea over stolen pendant A HIGHGATE woman is pleading for the return of a stolen necklace that captured the handprint of her late daughter. The woman, who asked not to be named, found her car broken into on the morning of June 22. Her black Guess wallet was stolen, and inside was a…

AFTER seeing our story of Bunnings’ plan to move into the Pickle District, Andrew Main informs us this actually marks the hardware company’s return to their home patch. The Bunning brothers came to WA in 1886 and purchased their first saw mill, and “Bunning Bros” became incorporated in 1907.  The next generation of Bunnings sons…