Regional Rail Link and the Alliance (Thiess, Balfour Beatty, Parsons Brinckerhoff and SKM ) intend to utterly destroy the McKay Gardens – because they are barbarians and they can.
Australia’s oldest industrial garden will have a strip of land approximately 3 metres wide sliced off the front along Anderson Road, from the original gate posts to the middle of the gardens. Over time the the rest of the garden frontage will also lose 3 meters of frontage. The north western corner opposite King Edward avenue will be sliced off and the gates and gate posts re-located nearly 4 meters from their current position. In addition, the power poles that are currently located in the nature strip along Anderson Road will also be relocated within the gardens, ‘necessitating’ the removal of trees and the bastardisation of the tree canopies. So much for struggling through the drought to save our 100 year oaks.
In addition the old footbridge will be demolished completely and replaced by a 7 meter high, 66 meter long, 3 meter wide monstrosity. with a 3 meter high anti-throw screen along the entire length. Pedestrians will be able to see through the mesh but you won’t be to take photos for instance.
And this is even before we get to the 6 meter depression of Anderson Road that cuts off the connection between the gardens and the Harvester housing estate. Not to mention the increase in noise in the Gardens.
After a 100 years of history, and 5 years of community struggle the barbarians seem to have finally won.
But even now we are not giving up without a fight. Win or loose we will have fought on the side of the angels while the philistines will go down in history as the people who destroyed the gardens.