Image: The new Powerhouse Museum at Parramatta under construction. Photo: GreaterSydney.Community/Facebook.
By GRACE JOHNSON
The NSW government has abandoned the plan to rebuild heritage site Willow Grove House in Parramatta following the advice of heritage experts who said that the reconstruction would constitute “fake heritage”.
Dating back to the late 19th century, the Italianate villa was demolished in 2021 to make room for the new Powerhouse Museum in Parramatta after years of protests and community campaigns.
On Saturday, the Minns government dropped the former Coalition government’s professed scheme to rebuild and relocate the heritage building, the pieces of which are being stored in a facility in south-west Sydney. In a media statement released today, the Minns government claimed that the former Liberal government never allocated funds for the reconstruction.
Minister for the Arts, John Graham said, “It was a tragedy that Willow Grove was demolished, particularly against the community’s strong wishes to preserve it. However now that it’s been pulled down, it’s a terrible idea to try to rebuild it.”
“The government will focus on heritage sites in Parramatta – such as the Roxy Theatre,” he continued.
The decision comes as a relief, even to those who had campaigned so strongly against the demolition in the first place.
President of the North Parramatta Residents Action Group (NPRAG) Suzette Meade said, “it would be a precedence for other heritage sites.”
“Otherwise we could just pull down heritage sites and build them somewhere else again.”
Meade added that the money that would be used to rebuild Willow Grove would be better used protecting other heritage sites and investing in what’s already there.
The plan to dismantle and relocate the historical building came into place after the Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) lifted the green plan placed in 2020 and made a deal with the NSW government, who had agreed to incorporate another heritage building, St George’s Terrace, into the design of the new Powerhouse Museum.
Although the Heritage Act 1977 (the Act) seeks to protect and conserve places of significance, making it illegal to demolish, damage, or despoil a place, precinct, or land, planning laws can override the Act when in alignment with State Significant Development guidelines (SSD), meaning development that is economically, environmentally, or socially, important to the State.
The scheme to rebuild and relocate Willow Grove received little community support.
“There needs to be a change in the leadership moving forward,” Meade said.
“We’re having no respect and heritage is being lost.”
Speaking about building the Powerhouse Museum, a $1.5 billion project, and the plan to bring Vivid to Parramatta, Meade said, “they’re trying to create this economy of high tourism, but we need to be thinking more long term.”
“We need people that come for three days, not two hours.”
“We wanted a museum to tell the story of First Nations people, colonisation, the First Migration, based on what’s there already.”
“Parramatta has some amazing culture and events already. We just need funding.”
A report by Western Sydney University’s Centre for Western Sydney from earlier this year showed that despite 50 percent of all Sydney residents living in Western Sydney, and 10 percent of all Australians, only 3.5 percent of all state infrastructure funding awarded to Sydney was allocated to the western suburbs.
Between 2015-2023, Western Sydney received only 3.4 percent of funding for the arts at the federal level.
Parramatta Deputy Mayor Cameron Maclean said, “we all know that Sydney tends to favour East Sydney over West.”
“In terms of funding, the amount of cultural events in the remainder of Sydney far exceeds that in the West.”
Parramatta has seen a glut of major developments in recent years including the opening of Charles Street Square, the Alfred Street Bridge, and the Parramatta Aquatic Centre (PAC), which will open its doors on September 25.
Building heights have also been increased to support CBD plans in Parramatta.
Maclean said the PAC is “a huge piece of infrastructure that Parramatta deserves, that will be welcomed by the community, [one that is] very densely populated and suffers heat effects.”
“Developments in the area over the years were pretty stop-start and plateaued for a while.”
“It feels like we’re on the march and finally moving forwards.”
But on the larger scale of state development in the area, Meade said, “Parramatta is never asked what they want, we’re told what we’ll get.”
“They’re always talking about place making. We want place keeping.”
