Marking Time for Council’s History Week

Millions spent on sewerage works; opposition to dredging at Avoca Lake, flash flooding at Halekulani shops and what to do with the Gosford Council chambers.

Is it the latest Council news?

No, it’s the headlines from 40 years ago.

Merilyn Vale reminisces just in time for History Week.

History Week 2024 runs from Saturday, September 7, to Sunday, September 15 – which is fitting because some Central Coast Council candidates will make history by the Sunday, or they will be history as far as their council ambitions go.

The theme for this year’s History Week is Marking Time, again another fitting theme if we’re talking about Central Coast Council as we celebrate the move back to democracy. 

Or will we soon mourn the loss of the administrator, fondly recalling Rik Hart, “the Riktator”.

Will someone be reading this article in 40 years’ time, wondering about it just as I have been doing while reading an article I wrote 40 years ago.

Forty years ago, local architects were wondering if the Gosford Council Chambers was a building for the future – a building to show the heritage of the 1980s.

It opened in 1976.

“So what are we now creating in our environment to pass on to our children and grand children as the heritage of the 1980s,” asked architect Don Neil in an article I wrote in April 1984.

“What are we building that will stand the test of time? 

“We are creating a wasteland, a proliferation of western suburbs on the Central Coast.

“It is a great shame about this area, I’m not confident we will have anything, a small handful of houses and public buildings but nothing great.”

Mr Neil said there was no real urban design for the Central Coast.

“The overall plan is piecemeal and we are building mile after mile of boxes.”

He said the authorities were not setting much of an example and that the Coast was being destroyed.

“We talk about tourism but we are destroying what the tourists are coming here for in the first place.”

The same article also quoted Gary Oliver, an architectural draftsman, who said the life expectancy of “today’s” buildings was only 20 years.

“The old church at Kincumber was built to last but these days buildings are thrown up quickly,” Mr Oliver said.

(Notice how back then we used courtesy titles such as “Mr” when naming the people we were quoting? That’s history now.)

And then Beryl Strom, president of the Gosford District Historical Research and Heritage Association, and a name still synonymous with the Coast for many historical reasons, was quoted.

Mrs Strom said historians in the future would need to determine what represented the 1980s.

“The buildings which will stand out later will be the ones which are examples of our history today, for example service stations and shopping complexes,” she said

“Homes being built today are to us very modern but one day they will be of historical value, like the weekenders built after the First World War. 

“Nobody would have dreamt that one day we would want to save them for posterity.”

(OK, as a cadet journalist I actually wrote prosperity – but reading it now I realise my mistake.)

Mrs Strom said the Woy Woy Council Chamber represented a particular period in our history.

“History is being made all the time,” she said.

“We are not aware of the importance of a modern building until later.”

The article then talks about the now-former Gosford Council chambers and presents two views of its value but doesn’t actually quote anyone.

The council building has been empty since 2021 when the administration moved to Wyong.

It has been earmarked for sale to NSW TAFE but so far, the money has not been put in the State budget.

“Gosford city Council Chambers – a building for the future?” the article asks.

“Unless dwarfed by other buildings, will it stand out as a feature of the Coast, a good example of an office block with finesse and functionality or should it be demolished in 20 years time and replaced with new trends?

“Does it represent the heritage we wish to leave future generations? 

“According to a local architectural expert it is not only visually intimidating to the general public but it has an ‘Insurance Office approach’.”

The article included a photo of a service station and said it could stand as an historic building in its own right, as a symbol of the frantic pace of the 20th century. 

“Service stations could be obsolete by the turn-of-the-century as research finds an alternative to petrol,” the caption stated.

Hmmm.

What else happened of note on the Coast in 1984?

(I was only covering the southern part of the greater Central Coast so the former Wyong council area didn’t get much attention. Back then, it had its own local paper.)

Council was in the Land and Environment Court after residents attempted to stop it from dredging Avoca Lake.

Bay Village at Bateau Bay opened.

There was an asbestos scare at Woy Woy Tip.

Cracker Night was a real big deal.

Local reaction to the introduction of the $1 coin was mixed.

Back in 1984 we used to do street polls in the main street of Gosford on the news of the day.

The $1 coin was too small according to people who mistook it for a ten cent coin.

A resident wanted Council to clean up seaweed at Tuggerah Lake and Council’s engineers department explained that kelp was a stabilising medium in the sand, binding it together.

Pharmacists must change with the times was the headline on one article with the president of the Pharmacy Guild visiting the Coast to discuss the introduction of Medicare and other changes they were facing.

The new Punt Bridge just past the East Gosford shopping strip opened and my article noted that drivers would no longer be waiting in built-up traffic and window shopping from their cars.

Hmmm.

Eraring Power Station was officially fully operational.

I wrote about its “impressive” circulating water system.

“Water is drawn from Bonnells Bay through a five kilometre intake canal,” I wrote.

“To pass the water under Dora Creek, a 260 metre concrete caisson was sunk to avoid any disturbance to the creek’s normal flow pattern.”

OMG, I could go on, but you know, time passes. 

And I’ve marked enough of it for now.

Merilyn Vale