Save Boroondara’s Bluestone Heritage: a progress report
George Demetrios
Whilst other Councils (Stonnington, Whitehorse, Merri-bek, Yarra, Glen Eira, Port Phillip, Hobsons Bay) treat their bluestone laneways and bluestone kerb and channels as heritage, and conserve them accordingly, Boroondara still treats its bluestone heritage as an engineering issue.
Council views Boroondara’s historic bluestone laneways and bluestone kerb and channels as ‘road material’, ignoring the heritage significance that Boroondara’s bluestone laneways and bluestone kerb and channels hold for the local community.
Petitioning the City of Boroondara
The group Save Boroondara’s Bluestone Heritage has created a petition on this issue. It calls on Council to undertake a bluestone heritage study, prepared by a qualified heritage expert, to identify, document and protect the aesthetic, social and historical values of Boroondara’s original bluestone kerb and channels and bluestone laneways. It is available at https://www.change.org/p/save-boroondara-s-heritage-bluestone-kerb-channels-and-laneways-30ecb034-d213-4c73-b7f4-3e350f8f8ca3
This petition will be presented to Council as part of the consultations on Boroondara’s Draft Road Materials Policy. At this stage, the group plans to present it at the June 24 Council meeting.
Have your say on heritage matters in Boroondara
Boroondara Council recently opened community consultation on their new Heritage Strategy. Many residents consider protection of the City’s historic bluestone laneways, bluestone kerb and channels and bluestone crossovers a necessary part of the City’s future heritage work program.
An online survey on the Heritage Strategy is available via Boroondara’s Engage website at https://engage.boroondara.vic.gov.au/. Boroondara Council officers will also hold pop-up meetings to discuss the new Heritage Strategy on:
- Tuesday 11 June 2024, from 11am to 1pm Ashburton Library, 154 High Street Ashburton;
- Monday 17 June 2024 from 4pm to 7pm Camberwell Library, 340 Camberwell Road Camberwell.
George Demetrios is Convenor of Save Boroondara’s Bluestone Heritage
Save Boroondara’s bluestone kerb and channels
George Demetrios
Boroondara City Council owns and manages many historic bluestone assets, including original bluestone kerb and channels in streets and pitcher bluestone within laneways.
These bluestone kerb and channels and bluestone laneways are an integral part of the amenity and heritage of Boroondara, giving our streetscapes a distinct aesthetic that plays an important role in forming the municipality’s historical identity for residents.
The local community is now fighting Council to preserve the municipality’s nineteenth and early twentieth Centuries bluestone heritage, which is under threat from Council’s recently released Draft Road Materials Policy.
Under Council’s proposed Draft Road Materials Policy, there will be no ability for residents to retain Boroondara’s original historic bluestone kerb and channels, stretching back to the 1850s, which will be progressively removed and replaced by standardised one pitcher wide gutters, that will be of no heritage or aesthetic value.
Residents have already made clear to Council in the past that they want to retain their bluestone heritage, with the residents of Neave Street, Hawthorn East, in 2007, mounting a successful campaign to stop Council implementing a ‘one pitcher kerb one pitcher channel’ profile in their street, and ultimately preserving their historic nineteenth century bluestone spoon drains. Now Boroondara Council is ignoring the wishes of the local community again and is attempting to implement a policy that is not needed and which the community does not want.
In response, Boroondara residents have started a petition (https://www.change.org/p/save-boroondara-s-heritage-bluestone-kerb-channels-and-laneways-30ecb034-d213-4c73-b7f4-3e350f8f8ca3), calling on Council to undertake a bluestone heritage study, prepared by a qualified heritage expert, to identify, document and protect the aesthetic, social and historical values of Boroondara’s original bluestone kerb and channels and bluestone laneways.
A number of other Councils, including the Melbourne City Council, the Cities of Yarra, Port Phillip, Glen Eira, Bayside, Merri-bek, Whitehorse and Maribyrnong, have already undertaken this approach, conducting bluestone heritage studies that reflect best practice in cultural heritage assessment, using the heritage criteria set out in the Australian ICOMOS Burra Charter, which has allowed these Councils to put in place active policies and guidelines that conserve and restore their historic bluestone kerb, channels and laneways.
The preparation of a bluestone heritage study, undertaken by expert heritage consultants, will provide an opportunity that will allow Council, for the first time in its thirty year history, to identify, document and provide protection for Boroondara’s historic original bluestone kerb, channels and laneways, that are highly valued by the Boroondara community as existing community assets, linked to the history of our City and its predecessors – the Cities of Kew, Hawthorn and Camberwell.
Boroondara Council must hear the voices of the Boroondara community on this important heritage issue, as expressed in the submissions written, the petitions signed, the emails sent and calls made, by residents in response to Council’s flawed Draft Road Materials Policy, and take the steps needed to recognise the importance of Boroondara’s historically significant bluestone kerb, channels and laneway heritage, by ensuring their future preservation.
Please sign the online petition and help save Boroondara’s historic kerb and channels.
George Demetrios is Convenor of Save Boroondara’s Bluestone Heritage Campaign
Boroondara’s new Road Materials policy
George Demetrios
Boroondara Council has recently released a Draft Road Materials Policy, found at https://engage.boroondara.vic.gov.au/maintaining-council-roads, with residents having until the 12 April 2024 to provide submissions.
This new policy, if passed as is, has two points of concern for those residents passionate about wanting to preserve heritage in their local area.
Firstly, under this policy, Council will be replacing, with asphalt, 85% of the concrete roads located in Boroondara. These concrete roads are of local historical significance, having been constructed during the 1920s and 1930s.
Secondly, the policy will also remove heritage protection from the vast majority of Boroondara’s historic bluestone kerb and channels, which if implemented, will have a devastating impact, leading to the eventual loss of an estimated 90% of Boroondara’s heritage bluestone gutters.
What is just as concerning is that a heritage report undertaken by the then Hawthorn Council in 1993, actually found a number of the bluestone kerb and channels warranted heritage protection, which they subsequently received, when Hawthorn Council found the bluestone gutters were of statewide significance:
Apart from being uploaded to the Boroondara website, Council has undertaken no advertising regarding the opening of submissions, with the February/March edition of the Boroondara Bulletin, which every Boroondara resident receives, not containing any information about the Draft Road Materials Policy, and particularly the closing date for submissions, leading to many Boroondara residents being unaware that they only have until 5pm on Friday 12 April 2024 to provide a submission to Council on what they want to happen to their historically significant concrete roads and bluestone kerb and channels.
George Demetrios is the convenor of Save Boroondara’s Bluestone Heritage, a group trying to protect Boroondara’s bluestone kerb and channels. For further information, or if you are interested in joining the campaign, please email saveboroondarasbluestoneheritage@mail.com or call on 0478259296.