Perth Voice Interactive

THE demolition of East Perth’s Banks Reserve Pavilion has been stayed for a second time as regular users of the community hall made an impassioned plea to Vincent councillors not to bowl it over.

The pavilion was due to be demolished on July 20, but regular hall users fronted Vincent council’s agenda briefing session this week to make an impassioned plea for its retention.

The council argues the hall is expensive to get up to code and maintain and has low use, which is disputed by those who used it.

Wendy Herring taught yoga at the hall before being turfed out last year after the first Covid lockdown, and attended the briefing to make a case for the pavilion staying.

“My heart goes out to everyone who can’t use the centre anymore, it’s like the heart has been ripped out of the community,” she  said. 

“There is no low cost community halls available in this area.

“I had been teaching at Banks for a couple of years, and had a really good clientele.”

She had to close during lockdown and a couple of days before she was due to pick up the keys and reopen, the council called her “informing me that [the pavilion] was to be demolished and no one could use the centre.

“This came as a big shock to me. I tried to find a venue… there was nothing available. I no longer have the group of students, after 12 years of having that business it no longer exists.”

Ms Herring said “my eldest student is 88 years old and she used to walk to class … most of my students are 60-plus.

“I do believe Banks is the same sort of vintage as me, and I’m certainly not ready to be knocked over and pushed down. Sixty years old is not very old, and for me as a 60-year-old woman to go out and find a job doing something else has been really difficult.”

Private childcare

A privately owned early learning and childcare centre also operated there and its rent covered a lot of the hall’s costs before Vincent council ended the lease. Vincent did not count it as a “community use” in their usage stats because it was privately owned.

Resident Caroline Cohen said: “It was very sad when the City of Vincent chose to not renew the lease the little school had over this building … I know it was termed a ‘private use’ for this building, but these are children who live in the community, so it’s also a community use”.

One of the council’s justifications for not redeveloping the building was “as the pavilion is located in a riverbank flood zone, the likelihood of having a development or building application approved for major improvements or changes is low”.

That didn’t wash with former councillor Dudley Maier, who pointed out; “the building is located in what is called the flood fringe,” and only the less-beloved toilet block was in the more wet-prone “floodway”.

“Interestingly, part of the East Perth Power station is also located in the flood fringe, so somebody better tell Andrew Forrest and Kerry Stokes before they put any money into that,” he said.

Resident and artist Leon Pericles has prepared a petition and an alternative proposal to revive the hall to put to council before the next meeting, hoping they’ll rescind the demolition plan. 

His petition says: “Community support is so great that we have already compiled a very long list of respected professionals that will donate their time and expertise to launching the space with free classes, seminars and workshops. 

AFTER a two week Delta-related postponement, the inaugural Maali Festival is back on to celebrate the oldest living cultures on Earth.

Put on by Black Swan Theatre Company, Maali Festival is named after the Noongar word for black swan. Curated by Ian Michael, (Wilman Nyoongar) and Chloe Ogilvie, (Yamatji Nhanda), it’s themed around reclaiming the State Theatre Centre.

It was meant to run over July 9 and 10 before the new Covid-19 strain hit and it’s now been condensed into a one-dayer on July 24. 

The festival spans epochs with traditional dance and ceremonies, modern hip hop from Flewnt, and WA’s longest running play Binjareb Pinjarra, a dramatic and comedic exploration of the black and white versions of the Pinjarra Massacre.

There’s a mix of free and ticketed events, check bsstc.com.au/whats-on/maali-festival for times.

PERTH councillors have endorsed a plan to triple the CBD population to 90,000 by 2050, outstripping the state government’s own target.

This week the council approved a strategy which sets out the first 15 years of actions to boost the population, locking in the aspirational target set by commissioners who sat in while the previous council was suspended.

The state’s own target is 53,000 residents by 2050.

A staff report says a bigger population will “achieve busy streets, a safer place, more investment, business and economic growth”.

Many of the CBD’s problems are blamed on its emptiness at night as workers retreat to dormitory suburbs, but under the new strategy it’s hoped many will simply hike home to their inner-city digs.

The population boost would come through improving six “highly liveable, mixed-use neighbourhoods” in central Perth, Northbridge, East Perth, Claisebrook, West Perth and Crawley/Nedlands. Planning rules would be introduced to encourage “quality and diverse housing” and deter  developments too dependent on cars. 

At the July 13 special council meeting, deputy lord mayor Sandy Anghie said “studies over many years have shown that an increased inner city population is the key to a more vibrant city, and residents are the ones who will bring life to our city 24/7. But targets and quotas for inner city housing aren’t enough. Currently it’s not a supply issue, it’s a demand issue.

“We need people to want to live in our city.”

The strategy aims to hit 55,000 people by 2036, on the way to 90,000 by 2050. 

The plan will need to be rubber stamped by the state’s WA Planning Commission, likely to take a few months, before it can be sent back for council to put it out to public comment.

That means the final call will be made after October’s election, where the four councillors who only got a brief one year term are up for a vote once again.

by DAVID BELL

BANKS Reserve Pavilion will be demolished after all, with a community protest only slightly delaying its demise.

Vincent councillors were not willing to rescind a 2019 decision to demolish the pavilion, which was made on the basis that it was getting too old and expensive to make compliant with building standards and because its use was lower than other facilities. 

The demolition is part of the Banks Reserve upgrades and eventually an outdoor plaza will go where the pavilion is. 

Brief stay

About 40 locals attended a meeting in May calling on the council to keep the building, leading to a brief stay of demolition.

Mayor Emma Cole agreed to ponder a few alternatives to demolition: Full retention until the plaza was ready to build would cost $210,000, and partial retention would cost $195,000. 

No one on council moved a motion to rescind, finding those retention options too expensive given the pavilion’s trend of lowish use. 

Ms Cole has now issued a letter to locals advising them of the demolition and saying “we understand that many residents remain committed to retaining the old pavilion and will be disappointed. 

“I assure you this hasn’t been an easy decision to make. We have taken time to consider the options carefully, weighing up all factors and seeking solutions for the long term.”

The council will now ponder whether the plaza can have some indoor aspect, given indoor-only uses like the yoga classes that were turfed out of the pavilion have now been displaced.

Those ideas will eventually go out to consultation, but any replacement’s a long ways off as they’ll need consent under the Aboriginal Heritage Act given the riverside site’s significance.

The area will be lawn until then.

by DAVID BELL

PEOPLE who spent their childhoods in institutional care are campaigning to get a missing memorial back on display after it was removed from the Northbridge Cultural Centre without consultation.

Judith Forrest’s artwork “Unfolding Lives” holds special significance to care leavers. Styled after a child’s “chatterbox” folded paper toy, the sculpture is inscribed with words by author Terri-ann White reflecting care leavers’ experiences, and came about after the 2009 national apology to forgotten Australians.

Distressed

Not-for-profit organisation Tuart Place represents care leavers; former child migrants, foster children, people who grew up in residential camps like the notorious Bindoon Boys Town, and Stolen Generation members and their descendants.

“It’s really significant,” Tuart Place director Philippa White says of the memorial. People were distressed to find it had been removed without a word.

“Care leavers are a population who’ve been marginalised and given second class treatment throughout their lives.

“This memorial was placed in a really prominent position,” a pleasant surprise to care leavers when it was unveiled in 2010, “and a lot of people were very upset when they found out it wasn’t going to be put back where it was originally located.”

The memorial was removed and put into storage in 2016 as part of the museum upgrades.

Last year care leaver and advocate Mark Farmer began campaigning for the memorial’s reinstatement.

It led to a meeting in March at Tuart Place, attended by care leavers and the commissioner for victims of crime Kati Kraszlan. The commissioner offered an apology for the lack of information provided when it was removed, and noted the memorial had been damaged when it was removed from the plinth. Funding had been made available to repair it.

“The renovation and replacement does lend itself to a really good opportunity for there to be more signage – interactive links so people can find out more information right there on their phones, and also an opportunity for all the institutions in WA to be listed,” Ms White said. 

“That emerged as quite important to people, and we actually heard recently the artist would have been quite happy to do that.”

The area it stood on opposite the museum has been extensively changed so a new location is needed, with Kings Park mentioned by some care leavers as a favoured spot.

“It needs to be prominent. People don’t want to see it hidden away as a token thing. They want it to have at least the prominence that it previously had,” she said.

The Voice contacted the office of the commissioner for victims of crime and haven’t heard back yet, but after the March meeting the commissioner’s plan was to relay the care leavers’ feedback to the state government and come back to discuss reinstallation options.

by DAVID BELL