Page 1819 - Week 05 - Thursday, 2 April 2009
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The progress association also raised with me the concern of the Hall community about some road safety and safety issues, particularly for pedestrians, equestrians and cyclists, with the imminent construction of the extension of Clarrie Hermes Drive to the Barton Highway opposite Kuringa Drive and I have ensured that the Hall and District Progress Association are actively consulted by the engineering consultants that are doing the work in relation to that particular development. I understand absolutely the issues of concern to the Hall community and we do need to ensure that their concerns are acted upon.
Ms Hunter touched on the nature of our villages and the fact that the villages within our city—and there are four or five identifiable villages—do essentially constitute part of the city of Canberra in many respects and that our city reflects the social character of the villages that we have discussed.
One of the reasons that the ACT government was so determined to save the long-stay caravan park was that it recognised that that park was, for all intents and purposes, a village with all the social interdependence and characteristics that a village has. As we think of or consider the villages that we do have that constitute the city of Canberra, it is worth including in that description of village the Narrabundah long-stay caravan park. It is interesting that in that village, the Narrabundah village, there are no commercial facilities. There is no school. But it is certainly a village. It is certainly a community consistent with any of the descriptions that we would ever use for describing a village.
Then there is a range of urban villages that are part and parcel of the city—villages such as Urambi Village, established in Canberra in the mid-1970s, a village of 72 dwellings designed on shared community spaces and facilities, including a swimming pool, a ball court and community rooms. Urambi Village is, to all intents and purposes, a true village and broadens our understanding and the definition of what it is to be a village in terms of life and social interactions that we associate with the description. It is a true village not because it depends for its viability on a single element but because it is a genuine community.
A truly viable community is, of course, created through a combination of people and place. A village can thrive or a village might fail for a range of reasons. We can see this reality from many examples of sustainable villages that we have in our midst in the ACT. Our history as a city and our culture are bound up with the history of our villages, whether they started life as forestry camps or country towns or 1970s experiments in communal living.
There will always be a place for villages but they are living, evolving places not fixed in time. They are inhabited by families who choose to drive their children to school in the nearest suburb or who work late and buy their milk and bread at the big supermarket en route to home rather than patronising the local store. We cannot, of course, pledge to retain communities as they were at a single point in time and, of course, I think it is important that we understand that.
I came to Canberra from a village called Wolumla. I grew up in the country, as I have mentioned before. My life before Canberra actually was spent exclusively in villages,
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