Ted McKeown and Fiona Campbell in 2018 reviewing the 1991 Main Street Study Report (photo: Alison McKeown)

By Ted McKeown, Heritage Subcommittee Co-convenor, from Bulletin 5/2026 (July)

Back on 17 May 2021, the Lord Mayor penned a minute noting that ‘The Glebe Society, Millers Point Residents Action Group and The Paddington Society [had] asked Council to consider increased heritage protection for their areas’. As a result, among other resolutions, the Council resolved that

‘the Chief Executive Officer be requested to:

  • review the City’s website so that the City’s heritage information resources are more easily found and understood. Details about and direction to relevant NSW Government policies should also be provided; [and]
  • develop an education resource including online and in-person programs that raise knowledge and awareness of heritage property owners about the opportunities and limitations for maintenance and development of their properties.’

Details of the original and an amended minute are available on Council’s webpage.

And in the ensuing four years, what has happened in response to these resolutions?

Precisely, nothing.

UNTIL … on 30 June last year, we managed to arrange a meeting with the Deputy Lord Mayor, Councillor Jess Miller, and her energetic offsider, Tory Brown. On the other side of the table were Fiona Campbell, myself, and Linda Gosling, the Vice President of the Paddington Society.

After a false start, when it was suggested that the Society should do the job the Council had agreed to do, but supported by a Council grant (!), things started to move, and I am pleased to say that the Council has now done something to implement recommendation (i), the review of the heritage aspects of its website. At present, that website is woefully inadequate in dealing with heritage issues – in contrast with other Councils, such as Woollahra, Waverley, Ku-ring-gai and Parramatta, whose websites and other facilities are really helpful to owners of heritage properties and their advisers.

There was a further meeting at Town Hall House on 2 June this year, when Adele Zubrzycka and a team of Council officers presented the proposed heritage webpages to representatives of the Glebe Society and the Paddington Society. We were agreeably surprised by the work that has already been done. The proposed webpages also have a number of links to other sites that will be very helpful! It is expected that the new webpages will go live in late July or early August, so watch this space.

This has not been achieved without a huge effort from the Glebe Society along with support from the Paddington Society, and I would like to single out Fiona Campbell as the driving force behind that effort.

Our next mission is to follow up the Council’s obligation to implement recommendation (ii), the development of educational resources. Wish us luck!

Below: Ted McKeown and other Glebe Society members at a working bee on 22 June 1980 to clear out Lyndhurst’s cellar. L-R: David Kernohan, Jeanette Knox, Hilary Larkum, Ted McKeown and Peter Stanbury (source: ‘Fifty Years of the Glebe Society’, 2019)