Perth Voice Interactive

THE Perth Girls School in East Perth should be re-opened to attract families to inner-city Perth says Reece Harley.

Mr Harley, who’s a Perth councillor but pushing the idea as chair of the Museum of Perth, says Barnett government plans to sell the site for a hotel development are short-sighted, given there’s a heap of hotels already in the pipeline and the economy’s tanking.

“It’s better in terms of its heritage and history,“ Cr Harley says in reference to renovating the heritage-listed school.

“The benefit of using it as a school is the architects designed it to be a school, so you’re not having to make major structural changes to the building.”

“The city of Perth used to be a centre for school education, and sadly as residents moved out of the city and spread to the suburbs throughout the 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s, those public schools have been closed.”

Local mum Kristy Dai says family-sized apartments are popping up in the city, but without a school, parents might be reluctant to buy them.

Andrew Flavell’s daughter goes to Highgate primary school; as the finch flies it’s just over a kilometre away, but given serpentine road layouts, train crossings and peak hour traffic it adds an hour to his day doing drop-offs and pick-ups. The bus takes 45 minutes.

Traffic

“The traffic’s a bit of a pig at that time of day,” he says. “If you get stuck in traffic, if there’s any works going on, or something happening at NIB stadium with a few roads closed, it can be an absolute pain.”

Travel times aside, Highgate’s getting packed, he says. “The standard of teaching is very good, but the issue is space,” he says.

“We just need another school. As class sizes go up, it’s not fair on the kids, it’s not fair on the teachers.”

Perth MP Eleni Evangel says school resources are a priority, but she doesn’t believe the girls school site is needed.

“This state government has committed $5.5 million to Highgate primary school for a two-storey build to be completed for the commencement of 2018,” Ms Evangel says.

“This will cater for the growing inner-city demand for primary education. I expect Mr Hawthorn and North Perth will be in line next.

“An inner city school is definitely on the agenda however it will be driven by numbers and actual demand.”

She says education department figures suggest an inner-city school will be needed in 5 – 10 years.

“The old Perth Girls School comes up again and again as an option, however I believe the site has already been assessed by the education department and is not recommended.”

She thinks the nearby education department buildings in Royal Street would be better.

“There is plenty of green space nearby and the area is centrally located, accessible to all inner-city residents with good CAT bus connectivity.”

Mr Harley says the unused licensing department pits across the road from the girls school could be used for a playing field if Bronte Street was turned into a cul de sac.

by DAVID BELL

FIFTEEN years ago Dudley Maier cycled around his neighbourhood noticing the gardens were mostly water-guzzling jungles of old English plants.

Back then Vincent council seemed to be endorsing it — even amid the millennial drought — with it’s top garden awards often going to the thirstiest examples.

“I thought ‘why don’t we try to encourage native plants’,” Mr Maier says.

“I could see what we needed to do was encourage those early adopters to get the message out a bit and reward them, and demonstrate to other people you could have these colourful gardens without having to dump a lot of water on them.”

He convinced the Swan River Trust and Water Corporation to sponsor a prize, native gardens started to sprout around the town and in 2014 came the watershed moment, when Lisa Mazzella and Geoff Weekes took out the top award for their native garden on The Boulevarde.

Before long neighbours were peeking their heads over the fence and asking for advice on how to get their own gardens looking so good.

“People tend to stick at it,” Mr Maier says, “because they realise that in some ways it’s easier, you don’t have to mow lawns, you still have to do some work but it’s less onerous.”

Ross and Janis, also from Mt Hawthorn, won the natives category in the early day of the competition. Ross says he was initially skeptical  until he went to a Great Gardens workshop and was blown away by what he learned about traditional gardens damaging the environment.

He was aware of the drying climate, the effect of phosphates on rivers and that too much water went on lawns, and feared the once-pristine Swan River would die, leaving a black mark on the city’s consciousness.

Even with that knowledge, he says “by the time I walked out of that first workshop, my head was turned”.

He got rid of the lawns, saying they were a pain in the bum to mow, added raised garden beds to grow their own veggies and filled the verge with natives. Mulch was chucked around where they could fit it.

He says going native isn’t a magic bullet: Soils aren’t as fertile as originally, so plants need some babying in the early days and a fair bit of hand watering.

Entries for this year’s Greening Vincent garden competition are open until October 7, and there’s a big banner on the council’s front page that’ll take you there.

by DAVID BELL

MORE of Halliday Park’s mature trees might have to be pulled out.

An arborist has found three trees, between 10 – 12 metres tall, are ailing and need close monitoring. They sit in the bright red “unacceptable” range of the Quantified Tree Risk Assessment system, which looks at how likely they are to pose a risk to the public.

Other trees that are already dead will be pulled out. The study found the dead specimens had poor underground root structure and the presence of three pathogenic fungi.

Neighbouring resident Greg Smith previously blasted the council because under its interpretation the trees were not protected by the same heritage listing as the park itself.

Those protections will be tightened up under a new draft heritage classification currently out for comment. The park will be raised from a classification 5 heritage rating to class 2, which means “demolition of these places would generally not be supported.”

“Accordingly, any removal or significant modification (other than maintenance or pruning) to mature trees will require council approval”.

The heritage report done by Hocking Heritage Studio and Creating Communites traces the colonial history of the park to 1897 when it was purchased by William Leonard Smeed, who developed a portion of the land as a nursery for flowers under the name Smeed & Sons.

Comment on the upgraded status is open until September 13.

by DAVID BELL

KINGS PARK is heralding spring with a month-long festival of wildflower displays, live music, guided walks and exhibitions.

The jewel of the festival is the crown weekend on September 10 and 11, this year featuring the Mystérieuses Coiffures doing magical floral hairdos, the Adorable Florable wildflower characters entertaining kids, and resident poet Nandi Chinna reading stanzas in the sunshine.

There will also be a macro photography exhibition, free guided walks, and a display of mannequins dressed entirely in native flora at the Aspects gallery shop.

“This is the world’s biggest display of Western Australia’s flora and more than half a million people are expected to visit Kings Park during the festival,” environment minister Albert Jacob said.

A new sculpture has been installed in time for the celebrations, arching over the botanic garden entrance to welcome visitors.

Designed by Paul Johnson and Gail Mason, it’s an eight-metre high installation of aluminium, copper and dichroic glass with a mesh-like seed pattern to represent 11 endemic WA plant species.

by TRILOKESH CHANMUGAM

PERTH city council’s acting CEO Martin Mileham has been locked into the position for a five-year term.

Mr Mileham was formerly the council’s director of planning and development, and began working the CEO’s job in January when Gary Stevenson was sacked.

Lord mayor Lisa Scaffidi says Mr Mileham was appointed following a robust recruitment process, and is uniquely qualified for the role.

“He is eager to work with council and lead our staff through the next exciting stage of our capital city’s growth and we are delighted to have recruited such a high-quality leader,” Ms Scaffidi said.

“Martin has also worked closely with the council to implement a series of new governance and transparency measures in recent months.”

Mr Mileham has an architecture background with over 35 years experience in senior building management and urban planning positions in both the public and private sector.

His work has taken him to a host of far-flung countries, including the UAE where he worked on the Burj Khalifa (the world’s tallest building), but he’s a Perth man with a degree from UWA.

Councillors Reece Harley and Lily Chen weren’t at last week’s special meeting to appoint Mr Mileham, but both threw their support behind him.

Cr Harley liked that Mr Mileham had a world of experience outside local government, and pointed out that although he had the incumbency benefit, he was still picked ahead of over 50 other applicants.

“We did look all around the place and we did interview a lot of different people,” Cr Harley said.

“He is a very competent candidate for this role… a very good communicator, not only with the administration but also with elected members,” Cr Chen said.

by TRILOKESH CHANMUGAM

THERE’S herbs everywhere if you know where to look, Regina Drummond says, even amongst the “weeds”.

Ms Drummond is an expert from the Herb Society of WA, having joined up years ago on a simple quest to find some comfrey for a compost starter.

That led her down the herby rabbit hole and now a day barely goes by that she’s not cooking, healing, making cosmetics or keeping away garden pests with a handy herb.

She also specialises in edible “weeds”, which most people walk straight past.

”A lady rang up asking about about where she could get dried rosemary. If you buy rosemary most of it comes from Turkey. I was talking to her and saying you could just pick it.”

You do have to know what you’re dealing with and where to get it: “Fennel has taken off right down Spearwood, Wanneroo ways many years ago,” she says

But not all growing spots are equal: “It’s not such a bright idea to pick it when it’s right by the side of the road and covered in fumes.”

And a lot of edible plants look suspiciously close to ones that’ll make you sick. The first rule: “Make sure you know what it is!”

Ms Drummond is holding her workshop Herbs for all Seasons at the Bayswater public library on September 21, 10.30am. It’s free but register on 9271 2340.

by DAVID BELL

A WORLD-FIRST trial where mental health workers accompany Perth police has been a success, according to a report.

The initiative freed up officers’ time by reducing the number of people requiring hospital transports.

Mobile co-response teams comprising a senior mental health clinician and two specially trained police officers were deployed last December and currently cover half of the Perth metropolitan area.

“When the teams are engaged there has been an 80 per cent reduction in police officers transporting mentally ill patients to hospital, with the clinicians instead treating them in the community,” police minister Liza Harvey said.

Core duties

“This allows police officers to return to their core duties of investigating and responding to crime and antisocial behaviour in the community.”

The trial was developed by WA Police, the Mental Health Commission and the Department of Health and is expected to cost $6.5 million over two years.

WA Association for Mental Health CEO Rod Astbury says the results are encouraging.

“From the perspective of our members, who are family members and those with mental illnesses themselves, what they’re not having to experience is what normally happens around a very traumatic event. So they’re avoiding something that’s personally distressing and upsetting for the family, but also stigmatising as these events usually occur in public spaces.”

Mr Astbury says due to WA’s strict mandatory detention laws for assaulting a police officer, families are often afraid to call for help.

“Overwhelmingly the way [police officers] approach these situations has been astoundingly sensitive,” says Astbury.

“However because of mandatory sentencing, and the highly damaging results of assaulting a police officer — even when the person is mentally distressed at the time families rarely want to get police involved.”

Mental health clinicians have also been placed at the police operations centre and Perth watch house where they can assess people and get them care without needing police.

“Because there are people with experience at the call centre these situation can be  solved without police even having to attend. [This] prevents a situation developing — and if the person is already known to the mental health system they can be quickly matched with the right service,” Mr Astbury says.

by SOPHIE MOORE