Article Topic: Wentworth Park Road

What happens when you move a busy fish market, visited daily by hundreds of trucks and vans, buses and thousands of private vehicles, from a side street to a major arterial road? Traffic chaos, with an expected double the number of customers as the current Sydney Fish Market and almost double the retail space. The Glebe Society has also deep concerns about the impact of early morning fish industry traffic. The new market will have one vehicular entrance, opposite Wentworth Park Rd.

The NSW Land and Housing Corporation have advised that they are investigating the opportunity to renew (ie demolish) 82 Wentworth Park Road in order to ‘understand its potential to deliver more social housing on the site’. Like 17-31 Cowper St, 82 Wentworth Park Rd was designed in the late 1980s by the NSW Housing Commission. It is a fine building which respects the character and topography of Glebe while providing great amenity for residents. Moreover, it is in a heritage conservation area.

A much-loved boxing trainer and community member, John McColl, died in August at the age of 81 years. After a successful boxing career he set up and ran the Glebe Estate Boxing Gym that was once located on Wentworth Park Rd. As well as training state and national champions, the gym played a vital social role in the Glebe community.

Brian Fuller and Ian Stephenson of the Society’s Management Committee, met with Deputy Lord Mayor, Linda Scott and the Hon. Melinda Pavey, Minister for Water, Property and Housing. The Society expressed its opposition to the spot rezoning of 17-31 Cowper St and 2A-D Wentworth Park Rd to allow the NSW Land and Housing Corporation to erect two eight-storey apartment buildings in the St Phillip’s Heritage Conservation Area.

Glebe Society met with Lord Mayor Clover Moore to discuss social housing. The Glebe Society is opposed to LAHC’s unprincipled vision to create a tale of two suburbs: one which is low-rise and historic and the other which is high-rise and heartless.

Nearly forty years of good planning designed to conserve the scale of the St Phillips Heritage Conservation Area through height controls was overturned on 29 March when Sydney City Council approved the NSW Land and Housing Corporation’s application for a spot rezoning of 17-31 Cowper St and 2A-D Wentworth Park Rd.

Report from the Glebe Society President, Janet Wahlquist on the Society’s recent activities.

The Society has lodged an objection the NSW Government s plans to remove the parts of the St Phillips Heritage Conservation Area, paving the way for building heights up to the equivalent of eight storeys. T

The Glebe Society has expressed strong opposition to Sydney City Council’s Plans to adjust the boundaries of the the St Phillips Heritage Conservation Area to exclude 2A-2D Wentworth Park Road and 17-31 Cowper Street to enable their demolition and replacement by 8-storey apartment buildings. Plus, why the 1980s infill developments in Glebe worked so well.