Page 2055 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 6 August 2014
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the impact of the proposal on traffic management in the area; therefore they had started a new process of engagement with the Land Development Agency to address these concerns. They are now working actively with the Land Development Agency to investigate other traffic options and have engaged a consultant to look at different designs for the street layout, including the intersection of Cotter Road and Adelaide Avenue.
I do not have any definitive changes at this point, as the work is still taking place, but I am pleased to inform the Assembly and the community that work is progressing on the very valid questions that the community has raised. I look forward to the result of the traffic management review, and I support this review being made public so that the community can respond.
I would also like to take the opportunity to talk about the brickworks site itself. It is something that I am quite passionate about. I think that, to a large degree, the success of this residential development will depend on the way that it integrates with the brickworks site, and in turn the way that the brickworks site itself is redeveloped. I understand the need to secure the heritage values of the site and to make it safe as a preliminary step, but I think it would be a great shame indeed if it went no further than that.
The community response to the initial proposal showed that local residents do want something to be done with the brickworks site. With the residential development back on the table, now is the time to start thinking about how we might revitalise the brickworks so that they can become an active and vibrant site enjoyed by the Canberra community as a whole.
At the moment the brickworks site is managed by ACT Property Group, which was previously part of TAMS until the new administrative arrangements came into effect with the ministerial reshuffle last month. Property Group now sits with Minister Barr.
There are currently a number of small creative businesses located at the brickworks, including the timber recycler Thor’s Hammer, and a couple of industrial-scale artists’ workshops. In April this year I visited the brickworks site and had a walk through the site with some of the tenants. It is a wonderful place. It is full of history, full of rich stories, and an important part of this city’s heritage. It really is very apt that it is being used by craftspeople and artists who are in many ways carrying on the tradition of the original purpose of the site—building and creating materials that shape our city.
The tenants have some creative ideas about how the brickworks site could be revitalised. As minister responsible, I asked Property Group to work with them to develop these ideas further, and meetings subsequently took place. I am pleased that the Land Development Agency is now also engaged with this process.
It is easy to fall into the assumption that the only way to revitalise a heritage site like this is with a big, expensive redevelopment. We have seen from other places around the world, like Christchurch and the way it reinvented itself after the devastation of the earthquake, that there are other ways of doing things if we can think outside the box.
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