If you’re looking for something unique to do this summer, Howard Park and MadFish Wines have you covered. Home to many great events, their Margaret River Cellar Door is a must visit.
On 14 & 15 January 2017, their annual Oysters and Riesling event will take place. Pack a picnic, bring your friends and chill out on the cellar door’s manicured lawns while enjoying freshly shucked oysters, live music and of course award-winning Howard Park Rieslings.
If Champagne is more your style, you won’t need to travel as far as France to enjoy it. They are running four exclusive masterclass sessions which will feature tastings of Grand Cru Champagne from the house of Franck Bonville as well as Marchand & Burch Pinot Noirs from the excellent 2014 vintage in Burgundy. Held in the Howard Park Wine Chapel on 28th and 29th January 2017, this masterclass will take you on a vinous journey through famous villages and Premier & Grand Cru vineyards. A selection of superb charcuterie will accompany the wines. A truly unique French wine experience right in the heart of Margaret River!
With wines from both Margaret River & the Great Southern as well as Burgundy in France, the Howard Park and MadFish Wines Cellar Door has a diverse variety of wines available for tasting daily. It also offers an extensive range of Sparkling Wines and Franck Bonville Champagne. With beautiful lawns flanked by native marri and karri trees, picnic blankets and bocce sets available to borrow, a visit to the Howard Park & MadFish Wines Cellar Door is a truly unique experience not to be missed!
Aranmore Catholic Primary School is firmly committed to building a strong culture of sustainability within its school community.
“As a Waste Wise school, we implement educational strategies across all learning areas that promote the ‘reduce, reuse and recycle’ concept,” said Principal Margaret Williamson.
“We encourage our students each day to look for new ways to reduce our water usage. We have water saving taps and work closely with our local council to ensure effective watering of ovals and verges.”
Students are also educated on the diet of worms as Aranmore Primary maintains a thriving worm farm which is used on its flourishing school garden. The school also has a highly visible and dedicated Green Space where students and teachers recycle batteries, oral care products, ink cartridges and mobile phones.
The Year Six leaders have also formed a dedicated Environmental Council, which is responsible for the day-to-day recycling in the school of items such as paper, card and other co-mingled products. Aluminium cans go to the Wheelchairs for Kids initiative, which makes wheelchairs for children in underprivileged countries.
Aranmore Catholic Primary School is certainly doing its very best to produce good global citizens who understand and support the principles of sustainability.
Cinema Australia proudly presents the Perth premiere of director Matthew Holmes’ new Australian bushranger epic The Legend of Ben Hall on Wednesday, 1 February 2017 at Event Cinemas, Innaloo.
After two years running from the law, Ben Hall is soon drawn back into bushranging by the reappearance of his old friend, John Gilbert. Reforming the gang and taking on new recruit John Dunn, the trio begins a spree of robberies and crimes across New South Wales. After the killing of two policemen, they become the most wanted men in the colony.
When the Government moves to declare them outlaws that can shot on sight, Ben Hall makes desperate plans to flee the colony; with such a large bounty on their heads, treachery abounds where they least expect it.
Ben Hall is the ‘Jesse James’ of Australia’s colonial history, yet few people know his name or his remarkable tale. “The Legend of Ben Hall” will change that forever. It will be the first time his story has been told on the big screen. No other Australian outlaw story is more enthralling and tragic than that of Ben Hall. The Legend of Ben Hall is rated M15+ for Mature Themes, Violence, Coarse Language and Brief Nudity.
ROSEWOOD Care Group will triple the number of beds at it’s Cleaver Street aged care complex in West Perth under a $65-million redevelopment.
The six-storey redevelopment will bring the number of beds at the old folks’ home to more than 150, and also see a $500,000 restoration of the heritage-listed Florence Hummerston Lodge.
Rosewood says its 1957 buildings have come to the end of their life, but locals aren’t happy with its scale.
About 40 met with Perth MP Eleni Evangel across the street from Rosewood last Saturday, expressing concerns about the height, bulk, and extra traffic the bigger home and its attached pharmacy and 40-seat cafe would generate in the mainly residential district.
• Locals gather to discuss Rosewood’s expansion and (right) the design for the facility’s six-storey expansion.
A petition is also doing the rounds saying it will reduce the amenity and privacy of homes to the south and east, and cause excessive overshadowing”.
Ms Evangel called for Vincent council to release the minutes of two Design Advisory Committee meetings where experts pored over the plans, saying it could reveal if the plans got extra height for design excellence. She says that information could help locals in their submissions.
The minutes are usually available online, but they were deemed confidential. At last week’s council meeting Cleaver Precinct Group member Marie Slyth asked why they were being kept under wraps and implored the council to release them, but didn’t receive a response. The Voice has since heard from CEO Len Kosova it was a staff error and they’re now posted.
Shortfalls
Rosewood CEO Mario Zulberti says the non-profit organisation is “aware of some concerns about the proposal from a small group of residents and we are committed to working towards an outcome that will benefit the community.
“Aged care is a significant issue in our community and Rosewood’s development proposal seeks to address some of the shortfalls in the chronic shortage of aged care beds in WA. Senior citizens … do not deserve to be shipped off to a back lot on the outskirts of Perth to live in isolation.
“It is no secret that WA is an estimated 3000 aged care beds short.”
A CONTROVERSIAL concrete batching plant planned for Collier Road in Bayswater has been given approval by the state administrative tribunal.
Senior SAT member Maurice Spillane made a final order on the drawn out saga on December 14, setting aside a September 2015 refusal by Bayswater council and giving Ransberg Pty Ltd the go-ahead to start building.
Bayswater councillor Chris Cornish had lobbied environment minister Albert Jacob to push the Environmental Protection Authority into assessing the plant but was knocked back in August.
The SAT’s decision points out it had previously approved an even bigger plant following an appeal in 2011.
Superior proposal
“Despite professional advice that the use of the subject site for a concrete batching plant had already been approved by the Tribunal in 2014 with the existing approval setting a benchmark, and that the proposed development would have a lesser environmental impact than the existing approval, the council resolved to refuse the application,” Mr Spillane wrote in his determination.
“It was agreed amongst the experts that the proposed development was a superior proposal to the existing approval in lessening both the noise and dust impacts on the amenity of the locality.”
Cr Cornish was scathing of the decision, saying it flew in the face of almost universal opposition from residents, and didn’t include conditions requiring a production limit and wind fences.
He points out the EPA didn’t give the plant a full assessment because the applicant said average production would be 135 cubic metres of concrete a day, but once open it will be capable of producing up to 150 cubic metres in one hour alone.
A LARGE development planned for Wright Street in Highgate (“Too high for Highgate Folk”, Voice, November 5, 2016) has been rejected by the state government’s development assessment panel.
Applicant Scanlan Architects offered modifications to make it more acceptable but the DAP wouldn’t budge.
It was a four-to-one vote with Vincent councillors Matt Buckels and Josh Topelberg voting nay, along with state-appointed members Megan Adair and Brian Curtis. Only state appointee John Syme was a yes-vote.
The main reasons for the no-vote were that it was too high and too close to the boundary line.
PERTH council staff have been ordered to “dress suitably and modestly” with bans on revealing “too much cleavage, back, chest, legs, stomach or undergarments”.
The Voice has been forwarded a staff newsletter from a bemused insider showing the ban extends to midriff tops, hoodies, t-shirts and spaghetti strap and strapless dresses.
In a fairly Soviet measure “denim jeans” are also forbidden, along with casual shorts, sweat pants or “excessively tight pants”.
• A newsletter sent to staff outlines banned clothing types, including outfits that reveal cleavage, backs or chests.
Public image
The newsletter shows a couple of volunteer staffers depicted in forbidden outfits. Even a fairly demure summer dress was considered “inappropriate”.
The policy aims “to establish and maintain a positive public image”.
Perth council sponsors several fashion events including the huge Perth Fashion Festival, though few of this year’s outfits would make it past the censors at council HQ.
Our insider tells us a lot of staff are “quite fashion forward” and many, especially women, will be affected by the rules as thin-strapped dresses are in at the moment and fashionably meshy tops make bra lines visible.
Despite the approach of high summer all staff will have to wear suit jackets for council and committee meetings; but unlike councillors they’ll have to fork out for the threads from their own pockets.
Staff are also advised to “take pride in their appearance and pay attention to personal grooming and hygiene which should be of a high standard at all times”.
THERE are fears two geese and a ducky friend have been kidnapped from the Maylands Peninsula.
Local resident Carolyn Tretheway says it’s unusual for all three to disappear together just before Christmas, particularly as their usual haunt isn’t a regular thoroughfare.
“They are friendly birds who actually hang out as ‘friends’ together,” Ms Tretheway says.
• These three pals have gone missing, making locals worried for their welfare.
“They are very protective of each other and the two large geese can defend themselves well and would not be easy to grab, unless they were sleeping and caught unawares.
“Knowing their personalities and that all three of them have disappeared at the same time, I believe this was planned. I think someone has thought they will have them for Christmas and could be keeping them on a property somewhere.”
Ms Tretheway says she’s hopeful the birds are still alive and hopes the attention will flush out the kidnapper. If you’ve seen the birds hit, http://www.facebook.com/MaylandsCommunity
UPGRADES worth $3.5 million dollars will add five classrooms to Mt Hawthorn primary school.
The school is expected to grow from 850 to more than 950 students by 2025, and with enrolments at most inner suburb schools surging, the government is under pressure to spend money on squeezing them in.
A similar expansion has upset Inglewood parents who are fighting to save the school oval from being built over, but Mt Hawthorn’s new classrooms will simply add a second storey to an existing building fronting Scarborough Beach Road.
School board chair Michael Jenkin says they’ve spent years lobbying for more classrooms, so were pleased to be getting this “purpose-built, modern facility which is desperately needed”.
Perth MLA Eleni Evangel, who played a hand in securing the funding, says it’s a “huge win for the Mt Hawthorn school community.”
Architects will start early in 2017 and construction is expected to start in 2018.
COLOURFUL councillor Matt Buckels was first elected in 2009, adding a cheeky turn of phrase to debates along with a libertarian leaning which set him apart from other councillors more susceptible to NIMBYist complaints.
His early days were characterised by clashes with then-mayor Nick Catania, though he gets along more smoothly with the current mayor.
Brave decisions
“The City of Vincent is almost unrecognisable compared to the council I joined in 2009, and that is because we’ve made brave decisions. We’ve overhauled what we do and how we do it and we’ve built an administration that really gets Vincent.
• Matt Buckels at his Leederville home. Photos on the hustings by David Bell
“I’m happy to say that John Carey has been a fantastic mayor for Vincent and will be a tough act to follow.
“If I didn’t think I could match him… I wouldn’t have put my hand up for the job”.
If elected he’d be Vincent’s first non-Labor mayor.
“I’d like to think I share such a position with many Vincent residents; we are a positive, forward-thinking, urban-savvy community and I think I’m well placed to deliver what we want from our city.”
With a background as a transport and urban planner and sustainability he says “these are the key issues facing the city as we grow, and I understand them and will put them front and centre of council’s agenda”.
One big change from the old guard is that he’d like to “unleash the potential of the amazing administration team that we’ve built. Over the past 15 years we’ve probably had the most hen-pecked administration in the state, but I think that it is time that we let them really show us what they can do.”
The 43-year-old father of two has lived in Leederville for 16 years, and with “very tolerant” wife Jess, a dog, some chooks, they’re “just a regular Vincent family”.
He says he’d also drop the day job and be a full-time mayor if elected.
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EMMA COLE joined Vincent in 2013 after feeling short-changed by the council’s consultation over a development near her house.
Cr Cole says if elected she’ll be targeting more open space in line with a recent plan she floated with two other colleagues (“Vincent space race,” Voice, December 17, 2016), and will promote initiatives that strengthen communities, such as closing quiet streets temporarily so kids have a pop-up park where they can mingle.
• Emma Cole at the Mary Street Piazza: she wants more public open space.
She also wants pedestrian crossing to make roads safer, more street trees and an expansion of the council’s popular adopt-a-verge program.
Cr Cole says after her unhappy brush with a development she’ll be advocating strict height rules so residents have clarity about how big new projects are, rather than relying on the whim of experts to determine whether they’re worthy of height bonuses for outstanding design.
Non-partisan
She’s a Labor party member but unlike previous mayors (all served in either state or federal governments) she’s a far cry from a career politician, and says she’s not interested in seeking further office.
Cr Cole says her views on council issues are non-partisan: “For example I strongly support the abolition of Development Assessment Panels, and that’s not Labor policy.”
If elected she’ll follow Mr Carey’s suit in becoming a full-time mayor, leaving her job at the Health Department working in Aboriginal health.
She has the support of fellow councillors Susan Gontaszewski, Ros Harley, Dan Loden and Jimmy Murphy. Mr Carey says he “strongly endorses” Cr Cole, saying she’s already proved she’ll go out of her way as a councillor.
Perth Voice Interactive 