AFTER a three-year hiaitus due to unluckily timed Covid lockdowns, Leederville’s St Patrick’s Day Parade came back with a bumper turnout for 2023. St Patrick’s Day WA committee chair Olan Healy tells us the crowds were so massive it made them tricky to count, but the estimate was “probably between 5,000 and 6,500”. Turnout in…

FREMANTLE’S iconic Spare Parts Puppet Theatre is sending its finest marionettes to take over Forrest Place. The puppets are having their big day out this April 12, and Spare Parts’ artistic director Philip Mitchell says Puppets in the City is an exciting ‘choose-your-own-adventure’ that has something for everyone: “You can go on a puppet treasure…

PERTH council launches its e-scooter hire scheme trial this week, but there’ll be no sharing between council borders as originally planned. Originally the plan was for the “Inner City Group” councils Perth, South Perth, Subiaco, Victoria Park and Vincent to share a scooter share program, but Perth’s scooters will be programmed to grind to a…

AFTER an unlucky run of three cancelled festivals, Perth’s Irish community is gearing up to celebrate at the St Patrick’s Day festival and parade in Leederville today (Saturday March 18). In 2020 the St Patrick’s Day festival was one of the first big public events to be cancelled just days after WA recorded its first person-to-person…

AFTER 16 years as City of Stirling CEO, Stuart Jardine had announced he’ll finish up at the end of his current contract on April 4, 2024.  Mr Jardine has spent 25 years at Perth councils, and another 21 years in UK local governments. “I look back with immense pride and fulfillment on what we have…

AN unauthorised shisha bar in Leederville operated for three years despite multiple shutdown notices from Vincent council, the latest sign of an ongoing weakness in enforcing planning rules. This week the council voted to refuse a long-overdue application to operate from Shesh Besh, an indoors middle eastern restaurant beside a hangar-style shisha patio which opened…

STUDENTS from John Forrest Secondary College have shared their stories of migration for a book released this Harmony Week, March 15 – 21. JFSC, which has students from around 50 countries, has been involved in Harmony Day for a few years now, and last year produced a cookbook of students’ family recipes from 15 countries.…

THIS week’s story from the Vincent Local History Centre tells of the Tower Hotel, once a grand landmark of West Perth that was demolished to make way for a freeway offramp. THE Tower Hotel, originally known as the Club Hotel, was a three-storey landmark which stood on the corner of Charles and Duke Streets in…

A ROADBLOCK intended to calm traffic has proven massively controversial in a North Perth neighbourhood. Already a huge petition is building, calling for the obstacle’s removal just weeks after Vincent council installed it. The trial barrier diagonally blocks off Leake Street and Alma Road, forcing traffic going along either road to take a turn and…

IN late 2018 a local story of an old toilet stall door featuring a “glory hole” drilled for men to have sex through, went global when local gay activists donated it to the WA Museum (‘WA’s glorious history’, Voice, December 8, 2018). “I had a friend call me, he was over in San Francisco,” one…