Category: Crag Archives

Jodie McGregor Flowers

We offer a warm (if belated) welcome to our new florist Jodie McGregor. Jodie McGregor Flowers, which has been operating in Annandale for some time, expanded ‘across the Bridge’, in 2007 to open a second shop here in The Quadrangle shopping centre at Castlecrag. Jodie and her team comprising Narelle (a Castlecrag local) and Stephanie (a new recruit from Roseville) are thrilled with the feedback and welcome they are receiving. When not at the Castlecrag store Jodie can be found at the Annandale shop or spending time with her three children (all under 5!)

Jodie McGregor Flowers was the official florist for the 2000 Olympic Arts Festival and won the Sydney Flower Market award for Florist of the Year in 2003 and 2005. The business also won the florist category in the Champion of Champions at the 2005 Small Business Awards. Jodie handles the florist side of the businesswhile her husband and business partner Stu White looks after the administration and purchasing side of the business, visiting the Flemington flower markets at 5am four times a week to personally shop for their stock. You can check out more about the business at: www.jodie.com.au

MOMO Art Gallery and Oven Fairy

As reported in The Crag 161 (October 2006), Rosemary Macey operates a small art gallery at her business premises at 79 Edinburgh Road. The gallery showcases an individual artist in a sole exhibition each month and this month’s artist is Cecilia Coote. Rosemary or Peter are keen to her from any local artist who is interested in exhibiting at the gallery. All different styles and media are covered, including various forms of two-dimensional art works, sculpture and ceramics. Please call in and view the various artists’ work.

Rosemary reports that the Oven Fairy business, which provides exclusive residential oven and barbecue cleaning services, has been an outstanding success. Oven Fairy is now expanding with new franchises in the Sydney metropolitan area under an arrangement where the home office provides ongoing support in every aspects of the business. Rosemary is seeking new franchisees to expand the business and she exhibited at the Franchising Expo at Darling Harbour from 28-30 March. Both Oven Fairy and the MOMO Art Gallery were finalists in the 2007 Tru Local Business Awards and our congratulations are extended to Rosemary and her staff for these achievements.

New Middle Harbour Walking Tracks

Thanks to Richard Newton, a Department of Planning announcement in November 2007 has been brought to our attention. This advised that a $115,000 grant had been made to Willoughby City Council under the Sharing Sydney Harbour Access Program (SSHAP) to assist the development of two new walking tracks along the Middle Harbour foreshore. The grant will assist to establish more than 1.5 kilometres of new walking tracks in Castlecrag and Castle Cove. The first track will provide access from Sailors Bay Park to the Haven Amphitheatre while the second track will go from H D Robb Reserve linking Willowie Road to the ‘painter’s rock’ lookout at Castle Cove.

These walking tracks will bridge missing links in the walking track network along the Middle Harbour foreshore. SSHAP grants are awarded to councils and other organisations on a dollar-for-dollar basis.

Burley’s Restaurant

Malcolm and Janet McLune have expanded the scope of Burley’s Restaurant in The Quadrangle (The Crag 163, p.2). The business is now fully licensed with a good selection of wines, beer and spirits and operates from 8am to 9.30pm 7-days a week. Day-time chef Dean Forbes has introduced a new menu with lunch-time specials. From 5.30pm the business operates as the family-friendly ‘Pizzas in The Quadrangle’ with an Italian chef preparing a range of quality pizzas and other menu items.

Gourmet Source

Gourmet Source, the local delicatessen and cafe of Castlecrag, has recently changed hands after 9 years. The new owners Chris and Melinda Sims are looking forward to joining the Castlecrag community and building the business further.

Chris and Melinda currently reside in St Ives and have both grown up on the North Shore. They have three young children and are looking forward to the challenges ahead improving and growing the Gourmet Source business. Both have very strong business backgrounds and are looking forward to combining their skills in the retail environment. Look out for new stock lines and changes in the decor over the next year!

A number of long serving Gourmet Source staff have remained with the business, whilst a number of new faces have also joined the team since the change in ownership. All of the staff look forward to continuing to provide high quality food and ingredients and friendly customer service to the residents of Castlecrag.

‘Since taking over in November, the Castlecrag community has made us feel very welcome and we look forward to meeting more of you over the coming months.’ Melinda Sims.

New Playgroup

The Warners Park Centre, at the end of The Outpost, is a local Playgroup location for residents of both Castlecrag and Northbridge. A member of Playgroup NSW, it is managed by a group of volunteer parents and offers weekly play-sessions for children aged 0-5 and their parents. Children can play with new toys, try a craft activity, play music, learn songs, dress-up, play with sand, generally have fun with other children in a safe environment under parental supervision. Special Easter and Christmas parties are also held each year.

Sessions are offered on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 10am until midday. Fees are modest, at $25 per family per term with a yearly membership fee of $32. Vacancies are limited; phone the co-ordinator Donna Morris on 0410-689288 for information and come along for a visit. For information please ring Donna Morris on 9967-9918 or 0410689288.

Sally’s Bookshop

An anticipate sale of Sally’s Bookshop did not proceed at the last minute, so Sally is examining several options and we expect to bring a further update in the next issue.

Summerhaze at The Haven

‘Summerhaze at The Haven’ scheduled for 1 December promised to bring six youth bands together sharing a love of roots, blues and funk. All had donated their talents to registered charity ‘The Beats That Give Back’ to fund a rainforest project.
Unfortunately rain cancelled the full show at the last minute.

Nevertheless, in The Haven tradition, some 80 young people risked the showers and rocked to the music of ‘The Pachamamas’ with local musos Scott Wilson and Tim Charody, together with the visiting Melbourne band ‘The Landlords’ (both worth google-ing). With the barbeque sizzling, the bluesy rhythms soon had the dancers on the stage. When the organisers announced that costs had not been covered, the revellers dipped again into their wallets in a generous manner.

Bruce Wilson

…and just a drop of Cab Suave……

PATRICIA O’CALLAHAN and THE GRAHAM JESSE QUARTET in cabaret

The Haven Committee was hoping for a balmy Sydney summer evening for our cabaret on 8 December. All the catered tables were booked, the seating on the Griffin tiers (normal stone seating) was almost full and Michael from the Bai Yok restaurant had created a special dinner for the evening. One of Sydney’s best musicians and Haven Committee member Graham Jesse had brought together his superb jazz quartet to accompany the world class cabaret singer Patricia O’Callaghan who had agreed to perform for us, because she loves the venue. We were set for one of the best nights of outdoor entertainment ever!

Unfortunately, the rain had been with us all week and continued into the morning and there was grey fuzzy cloud above—the forecast was ominous, the setup arduous and by midday the difficult decision had to be made to play safe and retreat to the wet weather venue at Northbridge Men’s Bowling Club.

Although the ambience was not quite the same, it was very pleasant and the performances were fantastic. Graham Jesse and his group opened with some superbly executed jazz classics and the scene was set for Patricia O’Callaghan. We were immediately enthralled by Patricia’s skill and the power and joy of her performance with compositions from the likes of fellow Canadian Randy Newman, Kurt Weill and Edith Piaf with songs such as Cry me a River, Try to Remember, and Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah.  A very full programme of rich sounds and eclectic music continued to captivate us for the rest of the evening.  Great music, delicious food and a grand time was had by all.

The Haven looks forward to staging more cabarets in 2008 and Patricia has promised to go again with us at the Amphitheatre in 2009. And what of the evening weather on 8 December? The grey fuzzy cloud slowly wandered off and we were left with a mild Sydney Summer evening!

Christmas Carols 2007 was a huge success, with our biggest crowd ever; there was not a spare rock or piece of earth to be found! Our thanks go to Marlene Vaughn and her musical ensemble—we were particularly privileged to have Julia de Plater join us this year as pianist. The committee was deeply touched by the generosity shown by our community towards the orphaned children in Cambodia. Our first ‘Haven Giving Tree’ was laden with a variety of new, superior quality clothing as well as colourful tools to draw and write with. Marion Mahony Griffin (the Haven’s benefactor) would have been proud! The gifts are being personally delivered, travelling as excess baggage with the mother of the young Australian woman, Tara Winkler, who is voluntarily running the Orphanage. We will let you know how they were received in the next Crag. The Committee offers a big thank you to all who contributed.
Lindy Batterham

The Wind in the Willows As you can see from our poster on page 12, our major autumn production at The Haven will be a new adaptation of the ever-popular Kenneth Grahame classic. You can meet all the loveable riverbank animals and follow their irrepressible adventures outdoors in the idyllic bush setting of The Haven Amphitheatre in Castlecrag!

The Wind in the Willows is the second co-production between RAW-EM Theatre Co. and The Haven Amphitheatre Committee. Julie McKay, the producer behind RAW-EM, is confident that this production will build on RAW-EM’s reputation for delivering a great night’s entertainment which has had audiences either coming back a second time or spreading good ‘word of mouth’ to family and friends.

This live performance would be ideal way for HSC English students to study Wind in the Willows as a supplementary text for The Journey area of study. A pamphlet will be available on how this production explores physical, imaginative and inner journeys.

Howard Rubie

ARCHIVIST needed! The Haven Amphitheatre is looking for someone who could help create more order with its records. A little time is all that’s needed. Please ring Lindy Batterham 9958 2127 if you can offer your services in any way. www.thehaven.biz

Some 50 residents joined in Castlecrag’s first Annual Poetry Day on Remembrance Day, 11 November 2007, outside Sally’s Bookshop. Many had penned works reflecting Castlecrag’s community, environment, history or future. Poets ranged in age from 9 to 90 and all delighted in the informal fun of a lazy Sunday afternoon. Audience adulation was encouraged where any poem mentioned a possum, brushtail or ringtail. Judges’ criteria were relevance to Castlecrag, technical qualities, flow and use of imagery.

Eventual winner of the children’s section was bright-eyed Sophie Alais with ‘Gnomies, The Storm’and‘I wonder’, closely followed by Tom Hayward’s ‘The misty, misty Crag’ and limerick ‘Possum’. Best non-resident poem was from Eve McGlashen whose ‘Lorikeets of Castlecrag’ knew ‘we need the promise of a rainbow in our lives‘, a sentiment emphasised by Gaye James’ ‘For Shannon’, mourning her son’s death at 23 in 2000.

The fur really flew in the hotly contested possum section with Rob Sheldon’s ‘Crag Drummer’waking him with a ‘crash upon the flat tin roof’ as he departs to forage, while the family Hayward’s eight verses described ‘nine possums sitting like Christmas tree ornaments,/ under a Southern Cross’. Elizabeth Lander juxtaposed the human and possum sleep patterns in the arboreal highways and Toni Foster portrayed possum as the ‘sentinel of the night’ that keeps ‘the evening secrets of Castlecrag…people who visit others’.

Narrative poems were very popular. Librettist Vicki Freame rewrote the song ‘I’ve Been Everywhere’ to ‘The Crag is where it’s at, man’, explaining to a New York visitor the curious sets of names of ‘Crag’ streets, plants, animals and even shops. Therese Hayward mused on a detour around the Sailors Bay ‘winding green track’and Marie Bassett’s ‘All The World’s a Stage’ wittily brought Shakespeare’s seven ages of man to 2007. But the winner of the ‘Poet Lorikeet’ garland was Dorothy Fraser’s ‘Aussie Journey’, 14 Homeric stanzas relating the family’s emigration from Scotland in 1975 to be greeted by graffiti ‘Shame Fraser Shame’!

Our thanks to all for a great afternoon and what will surely become an annual event. Thanks also to Sally’s Bookshop, to Bai Yok for lending chairs, and to Castlecrag Cellars for prizes.

Note: The Poet Lorikeet’s first official poem, ‘The Haven’s Carols’, is displayed at The Griffin Centre noticeboard plus photos from Christmas Eve and the productionWhen Camels Could Fly.

Bruce Wilson

The death of Cissie Godfrey at the age of 104 on 16 July 2007 marked the passing of one of the last characters of the early Castlecrag community.

Born Sarah (Cis) Leveson to Polish parents in Glasgow, Scotland, she married Tom Godfrey, an engineer and they immediately emigrated to Sydney. Living in the Griffin house at 136 Edinburgh Road, Castlecrag from 1931 to 1939, they became actively involved in the local community.

Cissie and Tom hosted music evenings at their house every Monday. Cissie remembered that these evenings usually ended in discussion, and that Marion Griffin would often raise arguments about mathematics and music. Walter and Marion never failed to turn up on Monday nights.

In her later years Cissie often discussed Castlecrag and had a remarkable memory for conversations, events and life in Castlecrag, even recalling conversations of 70 years ago. The years did not dim her memory of Walter and Marion Griffin. Or of personalities such as Betty Roland, author and playwright and her partner, Guido Barachi, a well known socialist; Guy Manton, Professor of Greek; writer Bernard Hesling, and his wife, Flo; lawyer and politician, Edward St.John; architect, Hugh Burhich; sculptors Bim Hilder and Anita Date; artists Lorna and Edmund Harvey; and bushwalkers Anice and Frank Duncan. The Godfreys shared the Griffins’ love of the bush and were avid bush walkers.

When the Godfreys moved to Avalon during the war she maintained her links to Castlecrag and enjoyed her role as keeper of a part of Australian history. She visitedBeyond Architecture, the Powerhouse Museum exhibition curated by Anne Watson in 1998, and made a cameo appearance in Bronwyn Mason’s ABC/Film Australia documentary, City of Dreams: the Collaboration of Marion Mahony and Walter Burley Griffin (2000).

To her friends Cis Godfrey was special, not because she lived to be 104 but because she defied convention. She was fun, gentle, kind, forgiving, a great confidante. She had a robust sense of humour which could be at times quite outrageous. She meant many things to many people.

Courtesy WB Griffin Society newsletter

The journalist and television producer John Crew will be most remembered by Castlecrag residents as its serving representative on Willoughby Council during the heady days of the anti-expressway campaign in the 1970s.

After arriving in Castlecrag in 1956 John and his wife Laura immediately fell in love with the place and stayed until his retirement in 1986. The family was raised here, vegetables were grown in the back yard and everyone enjoyed the rock, the bush and Middle Harbour. They only moved from Castlecrag after they had found an equally magnificent spot on the south coast, in Bermagui, for their retirement. There they stayed fit and well until John had an unfortunate fall while getting onto his pushbike on 27 December 2007 that resulted in a slow bleed on the brain. This caused him to fall into a coma that night, from which he didn’t recover, dying three days later.

In the 1970s John was incensed by the state government’s renewed attempts to push forward with the opening of the proposed expressway corridor across the Castlecrag peninsula. John joined the committee formed by the Progress Association in early 1974 to lobby against the challenge of the Warringah Expressway and soon assumed a prominent role in its affairs. With his journalist background he was cajoled into standing for local council on an environmental platform and he was elected to represent the Middle Harbour Ward in September 1974. His period on Council coincided with a period of community activism stimulated by the expressway threat. Following the election of the Wran Government in May 1976 and its decision to fulfil its election pledge to abandon the Warringah Expressway extension to Seaforth, John announced that he would not contest the 1977 Council elections. He remained active in the anti-expressway committee, however, and played a key role in the decision of the Wran Government to launch the Commission of Inquiry into the Warringah Transport Corridor headed by Mr DS Kirby.

John Crew held strong environmental and social justice principles and here in Castlecrag he made a significant contribution to protect and preserve the natural suburb we all love. He was a much loved husband, father and community member. He is survived by his wife Laura and children Mark, Ross, Christopher and Lara, and six grandchildren. A precis of John Crew’s life can be found in the obituaries of the Sydney Morning Herald dated 9 January 2008.

[On the Internet, get: http://newsstore.smh.com.au/apps/newsSearch.ac?/
then type in Search Items ‘John Crew’ and selected the appropriate time frame back to 9 January 2008 and click the ‘search’ button. A payment is required for accessing the archives.]

Mark Crew

You may be aware our suburb of Castlecrag has a Community Centre down the driveway on the corner of The Postern and The Rampart.

This centre is utilised primarily by the Kindergarten Union (KU) kindergarten during the day from Mondays to Fridays during the school terms. It also houses a sub-branch of the Willoughby City Library which operates on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons and Saturday mornings – details of the operating hours are indicated on the notice board at the top of the driveway entrance to the centre. There is a small car park available for visitors to the centre.

At present the centre is used for a variety of local resident interest group meetings, including the Castlecrag Conservation Society and the Castlecrag Progress Association. It is also used as a voting booth for elections.

The centre is also available for use by local residents for private functions including children’s’ birthday parties and larger family and community gatherings for weekend day and evening functions. It serves sometimes as a back up for The Haven shows if weather is inclement.

Hire of the hall currently costs $50 for a child’s party and $100 for an evening function. A cleaning bond may be payable as well. For adults wishing to use the hall where alcohol may be served, additional insurance may be necessary at the hirer’s expense. Some restrictions apply for the use of the hall – these include hours of availability, the use of alcohol on the premises, security and insurance.

A small kitchen is situated in the Community Centre. The centre has a wide range of facilities including air-conditioning, reheating of food in a reasonable sized kitchen, refrigeration, tables, chairs and an outside children’s’ playground with climbing equipment.

If you are interested in booking the centre, further details can be obtained by contacting the booking officer, Warwick Hutchinson on 99584230.

Warwick Hutchinson

The purpose of the Castlecrag Community Fair is to bring the various elements of our community – particularly our residents and business owners – together in a manner that generates ongoing benefits for all. It is also an opportunity to promote the special features of our suburb to the wider community.

This year the Progress Association made a conscious effort to link the Fair activities in The Postern and its car parks with the shopping centre by locating stalls along the Edinburgh Road footpaths. The community stallholders were most enthusiastic in their response, both in terms of the interaction with visitors and the funds raised.

The response from our business houses was more mixed. Some reported good trade on the day, while others felt that it was below their expectations. The Progress Association has received a complaint that stalls selling coffee and food were in competition with established businesses, and this has been taken on board for the planning of future fairs.

As indicated in the lead article, the Castlecrag walks conducted during the Fair also provided a good medium for promoting our suburb to visitors. We expect that many of those living in suburbs near Castlecrag will be making more visits here as a result of this exposure. Indeed, it was heartening to hear several speakers at the Northbridge meeting on the Plaza (see article from The Crag) comment that they now go to Castlecrag to experience a friendly village atmosphere.

Our Treasurer, Diana Jones, has undertaken a detailed analysis of the financial aspects of the Fair. On the income side, direct sponsorship and donations from local businesses amounted to $3425. Stall fees amounted to $3575 and the income from the raffle and the jumping castle was $1731, making the total income $8731.
Total expenditure was $9270.60 as of 26 June, the major items being the hire of the stalls, chairs, etc ($3745.68) and the printing and delivery of flyers to promote the event ($2967.92). Thus there was an overall loss of $539.

While aiming to break-even, the Progress Association considers this a satisfactory result, as some unplanned costs were incurred when some expected services failed to arrive alternative arrangements had to be made. Our Trash & Treasure stall made $1650 on the day and it has $5300 in its accumulated funds from previous Community Fairs. We will be approaching members for ideas on suitable projects to which such funds can be directed over the coming months.

In the euphoria of the day, several local business people said they would like to see the Community Fair held on an annual basis. Organising the fair is an extremely demanding task and for this reason we have only tackled it every second year.

This year we were fortunate to have Simone Selby come forward with the offer to organise the Fair. Simone did a fantastic job and the Progress Association has formally expressed its gratitude to Simone for the effort she put into making the Fair such a success. We have also formally expressed our thanks to Kathy Burgess, who once again stepped forward to organise the Trash & Treasure stall.

2007 Red Shield Appeal

Our Castlecrag Red Shield Appeal coordinator, Diana Jones, reports that residents contributed nearly $6000 to her team of collectors on Sunday 20 May. The Salvation Army expresses its thanks to all those who collected for and/or donated to the 2007 Red Shield Appeal. Unfortunately not all of Castlecrag could be covered this year as Diana was short of volunteer collectors. We request all residents to give some thought to volunteering next year.

Judit Englert-Shead, 1949-2007

We record the death of Judit Englert-Shead in May. Judit was a fine sculptor and artist and her obituary in the Sydney Morning Herald of 21 May 2007 lists the bust of Walter Burley Griffin that stands outside the Griffin Centre here in Castlecrag among her well-known sculptures that stand in Australia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Germany and in private collections.

Judit was born in Budapest, Hungary and studied at the College of Arts and the Hungarian Academy of Arts in that city. She met the Australian artist Garry Shead there and after their marriage, she became the muse central to Garry’s development as a leading Australian painter. The Shead family have been long residents of Castlecrag and when Neville Shead approached the Progress Association in late 1996 with the offer of commissioning a bronze bust of Walter Burley Griffin by Judit we were most supportive and initiated negotiations with Council for a suitable site. The mayor, Pat Reilly, unveiled the sculpture at a ceremony outside the Griffin Centre shops in September 1997 (The Crag No. 117, November 1997). It stands as a fitting tribute to Judit’s artistic work.

Castlecrag Dental Service

Alex Dong and Winnie Li took over the Castlecrag Dental Practice in 2006 and, given that the residence is at the rear of the practice, they have become enmeshed in our community. Alex and Winnie met at dental school in New Zealand and they migrated to Melbourne before moving to Sydney 5 years ago. They have found Castlecrag to be a delightful environment and their new community to be most welcoming. Their 2 year-old daughter Anna attends the local Montessori Down Under Three Group. The Castlecrag Dental practice is children-oriented with its own playcentre and offers no gap payment for children’s dental examination and cleaning.

Alex and Winnie set up a table at the Castlecrag Fair to raise funds for Operation Cleft, a charity operated by the Rotary Club of Box Hill in Melbourne, to help children in developing countries who have cleft palates and have the deformity corrected. They raised sufficient funds for a child from Bangladesh to have an operation. Alex and Winnie express their thanks to all those who gave generously to the cause.

CragSitters

CragSitters had its inaugural gathering on 6 May 2007 at Stoker Playground. It gave an opportunity for young local families to meet each other. A number of new babysitters also attended, introduced themselves and added their names to the list. The babysitters list has been updated and is available to CragSitters members.

New members, both families and babysitters are welcome to the group, so if you’re a family who would like to find out more about the group or if you are interested in providing babysitting services, you can email us on cragsitters@yahoo.com.au. Existing and new members are invited to join in the next gathering on 9 September.

Thank you for the honour of election to this role. I am a retired government environmental lawyer and business manager, now running our family businesses here in Sydney and the Upper Hunter. I am a former president of the Castlecrag Sports Club, last President of Castlecrag Infant School P&C and a member of the Council’s Haven Amphitheatre Sub-Committee. I have a particular interest in encouraging friendship between neighbours and reinvigorating the peninsula’s sense of community, which can be summed up as: ‘Think local, Buy local, Employ local’.

What sort of ‘community’ are we in Castlecrag in 2007?

I have set out some demographic data from the 2006 Australian Census on Castlecrag. While interesting, this data tells only a small part of the picture. How do we fit together socially, economically and environmentally? Are our natural and geographical blessings used to full advantage?

From the 1920s to the 1950s, Castlecrag was noted “as an experiment in communal and community planning and living, and for the intellectual, Theosophical, Anthroposophical and Natural history views of its inhabitants”. Cars were few, residents lived more frugally, partly in fear of another Depression, and partly recognising that “the best things in life are free.” These included strolls, picnics, dropping-in, rock-fishing, dinghy sailing, gardening, scouts and church fellowships. It was a diverse community of communists and capitalists who set aside their weekday differences to work shoulder-to-shoulder on weekends building the Community Centre and other facilities.

Today the Crag is richer in median income and assets. What the Census doesn’t show is how many here are poorer in ‘free-time’ and relationships with fellow-residents, dependent on cars, with latch-key kids and joyless consumption. The Crag still has a remarkable 14 varied community associations, but these need reinvigoration by our 30-40 year olds. Our recent Castlecrag Fair was a wonderful ‘community occasion’, thanks to Simone Selby and generous local businesses who contributed to the occasion.

In order to build on this community spirit the Progress Association is seeking your ideas and support. What other events could we undertake? How would YOU describe the Castlecrag “community” today? And what would you like it to be in 8 years’ time, 2015?

Let us know your ideas in 20-50 words by emailing to: info@castlecrag.org.au or drop a note to PO Box 4259, Castlecrag. Better still, come along to the General Meeting on 21 August at 7.30pm (with a surprise special guest) and enjoy talking around these and other local issues over a cuppa or a vino at our Community Centre. We are particularly keen to hear from teenagers and the 30-40 year-old residents.

Bruce Wilson

Proposals for the redevelopment of the Northbridge Plaza have generated considerable concern among residents and business-owners in the area. Over 150 people braved a cold night to attend a public meeting on this matter organised by the Northbridge Progress Association on 18 July. The debate was sufficient agitated to quickly warm the St Marks church hall.

A number of Castlecrag residents and business people attended the meeting. This article outlines the issues surrounding the Plaza proposals from the perspective of the Castlecrag Progress Association and our local business houses.

Northbridge Plaza was built in 1961 on land previously used for market gardens and residences by the developer Sid Londish. A condition of the consent was that Mr Londish donate the land to the community for the associated car park to Willoughby Council and a covenant on the land requires it to be used only for free car parking for the shopping centre and the adjacent baby health centre. Council zoned the Plaza as a community shopping centre. In the 1980s, the then owners, Australian Fixed Trusts, demolished the original shopping centre and the rebuilt Plaza was reopened in 1985. Woolworths, its main tenant, drew shoppers from other suburbs and this generated conflict with local residents over the increasing traffic congestion in the Northbridge area.

The Plaza had passed to new owners by 1987, when Jaydesh lodged a DA with Council for alterations and enlargement of the centre, including the addition of an office floor over the supermarket area. The Plaza was required to provide additional car parking spaces and a delivery area, which they achieved by purchasing and redeveloping the former service station on the corner of Eastern Valley Way and Sailors Bay Road.

Concern about the ongoing maintenance costs of the car park resulted in Council entering into negotiations with Jaydesh in 2003 to offer the firm a 65-year lease for the car park, which would be redeveloped as part of the its proposed expansion of the Plaza. Traffic problems were of increasing concern to Northbridge residents and there was also a concern the car park land, zoned for community use, would be alienated.

A move by the Northbridge Progress Association in 2003 for the diversion of traffic away from Northbridge, thereby increasing the traffic volumes in South Willoughby and Naremburn, resulted in the formation of a sub-committee of the Federation of Willoughby Progress Associations to examine the issue. I represented the Castlecrag PA on this sub-committee. The group concluded that the diversion of traffic to other heavily congested areas was not a viable ‘solution’ and that improved public transport and pricing mechanisms to induce people to reduce car use are the only solutions to the traffic problems (see p. x). It also recognised that the proposed expansion of the Plaza would not only generate additional car travel, but would also significantly impact on the continued viability of neighbourhood strip shopping centres such as Castlecrag.

With the sale of Northbridge Plaza to overseas interests, AMP Capital Investors (AMP CI) assumed responsibility for managing the complex. Redevelopment of the Plaza was again placed on the agenda in 2006 when AMP CI initiated a series of stakeholder workshops on the development of a Master Plan for the Plaza. I attended the second of these workshops on 4 December last. While stakeholders expressed strong views against the expansion of retail areas at the complex and the need to reduce traffic congestion, there was general agreement that the present Plaza was a poor design and that there are opportunities for improvement through good design and a better mix of activities, including residential elements and community services.

There was therefore considerable anguish among community stakeholders when AMP CI presented its proposals to the third meeting in April in a manner that suggested the concerns put forward by community representatives had not been addressed. The AMP CI proposal involved an increase in the retail space by 80 per cent, the construction of several blocks of residential units along Eastern Valley Way and the conversion of the car park area into a two-storey underground car park. Residents estimated that the traffic generated by the development would more than double. Community representatives objected strongly to these proposals at Council meetings in May and June. As the result of excellent debates, Council has invited AMP CI to develop a Masterplan for the Plaza, the car park and adjoining lands with any increase in retail space limited to approximately 10 per cent.

The Northbridge meeting on 18 July unanimously resolved that Council’s motion limiting the expansion in retail space be adhered to, that ownership and control of the publicly-owned Plaza car park land should remain with the community and that any residential units built on the site should be in keeping in height, bulk and quality with existing residential units in Northbridge. The meeting also called for any redevelopment to have minimum impact on current traffic volumes and on local neighbourhood shops and businesses, that improvements be made to access within the shopping centre for elderly and disabled members of the community, that improvements be made to car park, security and convenience, whether or not the car park is located underground and that there be minimal impact on the residents of Harden Avenue, Tenilba road, Northbridge Gardens Retirement Village and the Paulian Villa Nursing Home.

Northbridge Progress Association President John Becroft told the residents: “What happens to the Plaza shopping centre and the adjacent Council car-park could have a profound impact on local traffic, shops and businesses, not only in Northbridge but in surrounding suburbs. It could literally change the character of our suburbs.”

The AMP CI representative Gavin Boswarva, stated that the existing centre would not be demolished, only enhanced. “We want to work with Council and the community to move forward with the Masterplan process,” he said. Gavin also acknowledged that AMP CI cannot sell or use the car park without Council’s support.

The Castlecrag Progress Association supports the efforts of Northbridge residents to maintain the character of their suburb and it distributed flyers about the meeting to our local shops on 18 July. Shop owners have expressed a keen interest in the outcome of the Masterplan process.

Bob McKillop