EXPLORE
Going, Going, Gone? BY JANE ALEXANDER, ADVOCACY MANAGER
International Day for Monuments and Sites (also referred to as World Heritage Day) on 18 April is a fantastic opportunity to celebrate our precious, globally-significant heritage. But it’s also a chance to reflect on the work still to be done. Recent events show that we can’t take our World Heritage status for granted. In July 2021, the World Heritage Committee stripped the City of Liverpool (UK) of its coveted world heritage status. While the decision came as a blow to many, it was hardly unexpected; almost ten years ago, UNESCO warned that the city’s heritage-rich waterfront was facing “irreversible damage” from unsympathetic development. Liverpool’s delisting should be a wake-up call for Sydney. Our world heritage sites, like all our urban heritage sites, are under enormous pressure from overdevelopment, over-commercialisation and poorly thought out ‘activation.’ Developments are chipping away at buffer zones, settings are deteriorating, and the qualities that make these places so special are disappearing before our eyes. If we are to avoid losing the value of our world heritage sites, or indeed their status as world heritage places, we need to act now. One site in immediate danger is Old Government House in Parramatta. The National Trust, which manages the
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property, is deeply concerned about the impact of nearby development on its settings and views. Ominously, these concerns were foreshadowed in the site’s original nomination to the World Heritage List, which noted the threat of growing urban environments and development in the property’s peripheral area. The situation in Parramatta is now alarmingly similar to Liverpool – overdevelopment in buffer zones and a rezoning proposal of nearby sensitive areas to allow for greatly increased building heights. The effect of these changes cannot be underestimated and will ultimately erode the significance of the area. Like Liverpool, Parramatta faces death by a thousand cuts from the cumulative impact of piecemeal development to its world heritage, state heritage and local heritage places. Time is running out for the Female Factory These impacts also make it increasingly difficult to secure world heritage status for other worthy places. In 2020, the National Trust renewed calls to add Parramatta’s Convict
National Trust (NSW)
