Public submissions on the Plan of Management for Callan Park closed Sunday 30 June at callanparkpom@gsp.nsw.gov.au. The Friends’ submission follows …
- Maintain the sanctuary ambience of Callan Park and Broughton Hall.
COMMENT When Callan Park was acquired as a public asset it was for an asylum for the mentally ill. The founders of the asylum were inspired by the ideas of Thomas Kirkbride, principally that the environment in which the treatment took place should itself be calming and therapeutic. From its foundation, Callan Park and Broughton Hall have possessed that quality and it has never been lost. This oasis of calm and beauty is now, if anything, more necessary and precious in the midst of a closely settled and busy urban area.
- 2. Protect and restore the heritage buildings and landmarks.
COMMENT While the whole of Callan Park and Broughton Hall is on the state’s heritage register, it is also home to highly significant heritage buildings and landmarks. Kirkbride, for instance, was the largest project undertaken by the colonial architect in the colony of NSW in the 19th century. While Kirkbride and some other landmarks are now beginning to receive some of the restoration and protection investment they require, other equally valuable heritage items such as the Convalescent Cottages, Wards 17 and 18, Farm Manager’s Cottage (the original Nurses’ Home), Broughton Hall and original dry-stone walls – still languish and are being demolished by neglect.
- 3. Preserve the informal ‘wildness’ of the landscape.
COMMENT While the area east of Kirkbride was originally designed as a highly detailed ‘pleasure garden’, the rest of the site was and is predominantly open, rolling green space. The original ‘pleasure garden’ has also reverted to a more open and unfussy landscape. This is now the nature of the site, something the efforts of the Bushcare Group have complemented and reinforced. It is worth noting in this regard that the indigenous sites at Callan Park are principally found in the vicinity of Callan Point and there the ‘wildness’ has been maintained.
- 4. Highlight the indigenous history of the area.
COMMENT Explanatory signage at Callan Park should honour the original custodians of the land and the evidence of their past activity. It should also be noted that Iron Cove was the site of some of the first and sadly fatal clashes between the indigenous people of the area and settlers.
- 5. Cater for the accommodation of modern mental health services onsite.
COMMENT The community has long supported Callan Park as a place of healing for people suffering from a mental illness. They have seen Callan Park as part of the solution to the long and continuing neglect of mental health in our society. Buildings in good condition – principally the 1990s cottage wards and the former ambulance HQ – exist that could house a raft of mental health services as well as step-down facilities for those recuperating from a bout of mental illness. Such services located at Callan Park would very much be in the community, as is the desired location of such services, and is supported by the community.
- 6. Proceed with public consultation on the name for the new foreshore passive recreation area.
COMMENT The Friends suggest ‘Veterans Green’ as recognition of the fact that new open space occupies the area formerly occupied by veterans’ wards of Rozelle Psychiatric Hospital.
7. Reduce through road traffic and ensure two separate pathways for pedestrians and cyclists across Callan Park.
COMMENT The Landscape Structure Plan provides in large measure for this by eliminating foreshore parking and much of the road network on the site. For safety and peace of mind, separate and separated paths for cyclists and pedestrians are essential. The Plan of Management should aim for a safer holistic 61h traffic plan that would include some one-way routes on narrow winding roads and perhaps paint roads with speed limits, arrows, and no-parking restrictions.
- 8. Ensure parking is available on the outskirts of Callan Park.
COMMENT This would minimise traffic within the site and underwrite the sanctuary ambience of the place.
- 9. Ensure large parking lots are shared.
COMMENT This would ensure there is no more encroachment on the parklands for parking.
10. Emphasise that Callan Park is a shared site, accessible by all.
COMMENT This ethos is currently an established fact and should be reinforced by the Plan of Management.
11. Design and install signage throughout the site which is uniform, unobtrusive and sympathetic to the site’s history and values.
COMMENT As any visitor will remark there is an ugly profusion of signs in varying and clashing styles. It is a reflection of the chaotic management and neglect of this iconic site in the past. The Plan of Management should include an objective to install uniform, modest signage throughout the park as soon as possible.
12. Abide by the Callan Park (Special Provisions) Act 2002.
COMMENT This Act affords Callan Park a precious level of protection from privatisation, commercialisation and inappropriate development.
13. Ensure natural turf is properly maintained in Callan Park and not replaced with artificial grass.
COMMENT Experience elsewhere proves that the improved management of natural turf playing fields can yield a greater amount of usage than is currently the case. It also ensures their use by a wide range of sports. Natural turf does not exclude anyone or any sport. The reasons to avoid the installation of synthetic turf at Callan Park, beyond the sheer inappropriateness of such surfaces in a heritage landscape, include the shedding of micro-fibres, the presence of PFAs (or forever chemicals), the health and environmental damage, the exclusion of certain sports and activities, the increased prevalence of injuries from such a surface, and the relatively short life span before these plastic surfaces are consigned to landfill.
14. Ensure the Plan of Management is holistic for both Callan Park (including Kirkbride and University of Tasmania) and Broughton Hall.
COMMENT This unique site deserves coordinated and comprehensive management. This would include provisions for security staff to be permitted to operate in all areas of Callan Park.
15. Allow public access to and use of Kirkbride – this complex should not just be available for the film industry.
COMMENT Until 2018 Kirkbride was occupied by the Sydney College of the Arts and this suite of heritage buildings was open to the public on weekdays and by arrangement at the weekends. Since then, it has been closed to the public ostensibly because of building works and for health and safety reasons. Yet various film shoots and production offices have been granted access – at least to certain parts of Kirkbride. It is contrary to the objectives of the Callan Park (Special Provisions) Act 2002 for this situation to continue. The public should not be shut out of what is a major public heritage asset.
16. No swim site in Iron Cove ( … relocate to Mort Bay?)
COMMENT Simply put, this proposed pool is in the wrong place. Its location off the foreshore of Callan Park will impinge on the regatta lanes and marshalling areas used by the Leichhardt Rowing Club. The rowers have used this course for more than a century and this 2000-metre course in Iron Cove is the only one still available in Sydney Harbour. The harbour is big enough to accommodate both this course and another swim site without bringing them into conflict.
There are practical problems with this proposal too – for instance, the lack of changing facilities, safety issues and accessibility. Moreover, Callan Park is a place that should be respected for the tranquillity and passive recreation it provides. This facility and attendant activity would thwart the foreshore parkland area which for decades has been the only passive foreshore land in Callan Park.
The Inner West is well catered for with 8 swimming pools within less than a kilometre of the proposed location in Iron Cove. If a harbour swim site is desired then Mort Bay seems a more natural location.
17. Identify a building for a Museum of the Mind.
COMMENT Callan Park, as the city’s best-known site for the treatment of mental illness, is a natural site for the establishment of a museum to house the story of mental health and advances in understanding the brain.
18. Commit to a regular series of ‘residency’ programs under the aegis of GSP.
COMMENT Writers in Residence; Artists in Residence; Musicians in Residence; Naturalists in Residence; Dendrologists in Residence – could all be just the beginning of creative endeavours which would utilise ample building space and build upon a foundation of works about and at Callan Park.
19. Adequate funding for the objectives of the Plan of Management and 12-monthly reports on progress are essential.
COMMENT One-off funding to accomplish the foreshore improvements envisaged in the Landscape Structure Plan has been very welcome and is a tribute to the then minister, Rob Stokes, and the then local MP for Balmain, Jamie Parker, who lobbied hard and successfully for the funding. But the accomplishment of the objectives of the Plan of Management will require similar and major injections of capital for Callan Park which has suffered decades of neglect.
The Plan of Management should be unapologetic in making this point as Callan Park is one of the country’s urban environmental and heritage jewels. It deserves to be treated as such. Yearly reports on the progress and operations of the Plan of Management would ensure that its important objectives are not lost.