CAMPAIGN aim

To support the Trust’s plan of demolishing the 1 Commando Buildings, and open up the ridgeline to open parkland (as it is today).

caMPAIGN DATES

2001-2003

OUTCOME

HPG mounted a successful campaign to have Mosman Council’s proposal Defeated.

READ COUNCIL’S ANNOUNCEMENT IN AUGUST 2001 HERE →

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From 2001 to 2003 HPG mounted a large campaign against a large development, "Bungaree Recreation Park" at the One Commando Company Trust site on the ridgeline of Georges Heights. The proposal included the transfer of this Trust land to Council ownership. HPG strongly opposed this as it was contrary to the Act and HPG supported the Trust's planners who recommended demolition of One Commando buildings and opening up the ridgeline to open parkland. The Mosman Council proposal was eventually defeated. 

Subsequently, in 2006, the One Commando buildings were demolished, which opened up the ridgeline views.

1.

Sydney Morning Herald – 12 December 2002:

An angry battle has erupted in the genteel heart of Mosman, with the local council and the Sydney Harbour Federation Trust at war over a prime stretch of land along the ridge line of Middle Head.

The trust says it has a statutory obligation to develop and manage the former Defence sites as parkland for all of Sydney.

Mosman Council says it must have the land for Bungaree Recreation Park, a "modest proposal" to enlarge the existing Georges Heights oval, reuse an existing gymnasium for indoor sports and provide five netball courts.

The trust's executive director, Geoff Bailey, says it has offered the council a parcel of land adjoining its own Rawson Oval to develop these facilities because it wants to demolish the intrusive 1970s former commando buildings and plant trees around the oval to revegetate the ridge line.

"We put in three years' work and consulted very widely with the community and sporting groups to come up with the plan for the headland which sees it as primarily a passive park with some sporting facilities," Mr Bailey said.

"We're providing them with all they claim to want – but not in the location they want."

The council has campaigned to secure the more prominent Georges Heights site, letterboxing residents, producing colour brochures and bumper stickers, and planning a mail-out through the local schools.

2.

Sydney Morning Herald – 14 December 2002:

The effrontery of Mosman Council in trying to snaffle a significant and prominent section of the Georges Head ridge line from the Sydney Harbour Federation Trust is breathtaking. The facts are simple: redundant Defence sites around Sydney Harbour, slated for sale and redevelopment as housing, were saved by a vigorous public campaign led by the Defenders of Sydney Harbour Foreshores and were pledged by the Federal Government to become part of Sydney Harbour National Park. A trust was established to investigate the five sites and recommend future uses. After three years' research, numerous community meetings and reams of expert advice, draft plans for the five sites are now available for public comment.

At Middle Head/Georges Heights, the trust has proposed that the existing ovals be retained but that intrusive, non-heritage buildings be demolished and the ridge be replanted, providing a series of what it calls "glades within groves" open grass ovals surrounded by trees. But Mosman Council, apparently without the same level of advice or expertise, nonetheless provided its own, almost diametrically opposed, view. It wants to reuse the existing Commandos gymnasium building for indoor sports, introduce netball courts and enlarge the existing ovals all on land which the Prime Minister specifically said was "not just for the people of Sydney, not just for the people of suburbs around Sydney Harbour, but for all the people of Australia".