APPLY FOR STATE HERITAGE GRANTS

Applications are now open for owners of heritage listed places to share in more than $1.2 million for conservation and cultural landscape works.

The 2024-25 Heritage Grants Program offers $150,000 through its Community Heritage Grants stream and the remainder through the State Heritage Grants funding stream.

Property owners can use the grants for conservation works, to develop heritage conservation or cultural landscape plans, and undertaking feasibility studies.

Eligible not-for-profit organisations, businesses and local governments are encouraged to apply for the Community Heritage Grants that assist innovative community engagement activities or interpretation projects that promote or celebrate a State registered heritage place or local heritage listed places.

Last year 28 grants were awarded, including $100,000 for conservation repairs to historic Mead Homestead in Leda, to help its ongoing activities for people living with diverse abilities.

Deep-sea surveyors Wrecksploration received more than $11,900 to help create detailed 3D models of historical shipwrecks in waters south-west of Rottnest Island, giving a unique insight into Western Australia’s maritime heritage.

To apply for the 2024-25 Heritage Grants Program, visit https://wa.gov.au/heritage-grants(link is external)

Applications close on Friday, 9 August 2024.

B SHED A FENCE-FREE SHED

Great to see most of the fences removed at B Shed on Victoria Quay. It looks like they have come a long way in stabilising the heritage building at Fremantle Port, that used to be home to the Rottnest Island ferry terminal.

Roel Loopers

FREO’S HARD WORKING PORT

Preservation work on E Shed has nearly been completed, C Shed has a new roof and has been stabilised, and the B Shed Rottnest Island ferry terminal is being stabilised as well.

Fremantle Ports have been doing substantial work all along Victoria Quay to preserve the heritage buildings, and that is great to see.

I wished Fremantle Council would also prioritise the preservation of our heritage buildings, but is has been slack when it comes to that. The Fremantle Townhall is neglected, and the required work at Arthur’s Head and the Roundhouse has only be done fifty percent. That is not good enough.

What good is destination marketing when you let the destination fall apart?

Roel Loopers

DISGRACEFUL FREMANTLE TOWNHALL NEGLECT

In a couple of articles about the planned very expensive $ 3.2 million development of a new toilet block at South Beach, I have mentioned the disgraceful neglect of the historic Fremantle Townhall. It is so bad that the fantastic Fremantle Chamber Orchestra is no longer willing to play there, and that is a real shame.

The Fremantle Herald today reports that the air conditioner is no longer working, the kitchen can no longer be used, and the balcony is not accessible either, so what is going on and how dare Fremantle Council neglect the beautiful and very significant building!

The Fremantle Herald reports that City of Fremantle Director Graham Tattersall has told them that works were in the pipeline, but it would depend on the budget. Oh, great! It might not happen for a long time then.

That reminds me that last year the WA Heritage Council offered to spend another $ 600,000 on much-needed work at historic Arthur’s Head, but Fremantle Council told them they would not be able to match that amount, so only part of the necessary work of this significant area was carried out, and when the remaining rest of the work will be done is anyone’s guess.

Heritage preservation needs to remain a priority for Fremantle Council. It is the beauty of our city that attracts so many overseas and interstate visitors here, and our traders depend on them. We can’t let our heritage rot away because some want to build an iconic toilet block at South Beach, etc.

Roel Loopers

WA STATE HERITAGE GRANTS FOR FREMANTLE BUILDINGS

Owners of Fremantle heritage buildings have received a fair share of the $1,14 millions 2022/23 WA State Heritage Grants.

The Ajax building at 45-59 High Street received $ 40,000, the Lionel Samson building in Cliff Street $ 33,295, Wesley Church $ 40,000, the Commercial building at 48 High Street got $ 14,577, the Marich building $ 25,463, 14-16 Nairn Street $ 8,594, and the Woodlawn House in East Fremantle received $ 44,000.

A total of $ 1,14 million was granted to 38 recipients.

Roel Loopers

MASSIVE C SHED HERITAGE RESTORATION

It is impressive to watch how thorough and massive the heritage restoration/preservation of C Shed on Victoria Quay by Fremantle Ports is.

Go have a look when visiting Maritime Day this Saturday!

Roel Loopers

BUT WE PAINTED THE WINDOWS

Fremantle Council’s concept of heritage preservation appears to be that one let rot buildings as long as possible, until it becomes almost prohibitive to maintain them, as was the case with the Townhall, that cost well over a million dollars to paint, after years of neglect.

That concept is now replicated at Fremantle Oval, that looks absolutely disgraceful…..but……. we painted the windows.

Are we REALLY going to wait with the urgently-needed preservation work until the Fremantle Oval masterplan is going to be implemented, in maybe 10-15 years?

Roel Loopers

CANNON TRADITION CONTINUES AT FREMANTLE ROUNDHOUSE

A new custom-made wooden carriage has given a new lease of life to the famous cannon at Fremantle’s historic Roundhouse, the oldest public building in WA.

From 1900 until 1937 a cannon at Arthur Head was fired at one o’clock, in conjunction with the dropping of a ‘time ball’, to enable vessels moored offshore to verify the setting of their chronometer.

The practice ended in 1937 when it was superseded by radio signals, but the tradition was re-established in 1988 by the Fremantle Volunteer Heritage Guides.

The new gun carriage was built by local carpenter Justin Elvin from the City of Fremantle’s maintenance contractor AE Hoskins. It was made from reclaimed WA jarrah and took Justin a week to build in a friend’s Fremantle workshop.

The new gun carriage is part of a package of recent maintenance and conservation works undertaken by the City of Fremantle. Other works have included the restoration of timber doors, windows, lintels and stairs, repairs to internal masonry buttresses and the repointing of the well inside the Round House courtyard.

Conservation works to the external outhouse located behind the pilot’s cottages are currently underway, while the bakery door is set to be replaced with impact resistant glass designed to allow more ventilation and reduce humidity.

Roel Loopers

WHO SHOULD PRESERVE THE SOUTH FREMANTLE POWER STATION?

I really like the former South Fremantle Power Station, that was closed in 1985. The huge 71-year-old Art Deco building has something majestic about it in it’s minimalist architecture, so I am one of many who would like the building to be preserved and activated again. But are calls for the State Government to spend big on it, now that West Media millionaire Kerry Stokes has pulled out of buying the site, realistic?

According to news reports it will cost anything between $60 to $ 80 million just to do the necessary remedial work. The site is seriously contaminated, so it can’t be developed without trucking off thousands of cubic metres of dirty soil, to a depth one can only guess until work starts on it.

The buildings is one of only four cathedral-style power stations in the world and the largest one built in Western Australia, so it probably deserves the same kind of investment by the WA Government as the former East Perth Power Station has been given. Or are those who ask for that, such as Cockburn Mayor Logan Howlett, too sentimental and nostalgic about the current neglected eyesore? Do we have to be more pragmatic about preserving our heritage?

The former Barnett Government had huge plans for the site, even adding two storeys of residential apartments on top of the building, but at the end that was put in the too hard basket, while money was spent, some say wasted, on developing Elizabeth Quay in Perth.

It seems criminal to even suggest that the heritage-listed power station building should be demolished, because it is in very poor condition, with concrete cancer and rotting steel, but just preserving it will cost so much money that it is questionable if the State Government should use tens of millions of taxpayers’ money on it, so that private developers can make a killing out of it, once the site is decontaminated.

We need bigger and better hospitals, more social housing, school improvements and paying nurses more, etc. so would it be responsible governance to use money that might be better spent elsewhere? I have to admit I am in two minds about this and am sitting on the fence, which is very much unlike me.

This dilemma is not dissimilar to the old wooden Fremantle Traffic Bridge debate. Is it responsible governance to spend our money on retaining something that has no practical need? The State Government does not want to keep the bridge, Fremantle Council does not want the financial responsibility to have to maintain it, even as a New York style ‘Highline’ attraction, and the Fremantle Society has not found any private investors willing to buy the bridge and maintain it for some 50 years. As the former president and vice president of the Fremantle Society I sometimes ask myself if preserving heritage is more important than building homes for those who sleep rough, and if preserving the past is a bigger priority than looking after the future?

I love our heritage and wished that more WA millionaires would see it as their civic and corporate duty to invest in preserving it, but that only happens sporadically, and not anywhere near often enough, so what is the solution?

The South Fremantle Power Station site has enormous potential to become something very unique for Fremantle and Cockburn, even more so than the one in East Perth, but will the Perth-centric McGowan Government see it that way, I wonder? I doubt it.

Roel Loopers

HERITAGE RESTORATION IS FREMANTLE BEAUTIFICATION

The heritage restoration of the building on the corner of Pakenham and Nairn streets in Fremantle’s West End is completed, but for a few minor detailing

I think it looks fantastic and want to acknowledge the significant financial contribution of the owners, who were supported by a grant from the WA Heritage Council.

The beauty of the old building has been restored and it makes a huge difference to the streetscape.

Roel Loopers