“Trapped in penny-pinch mode, the ACT government walked away from the essential servicing of the magnificent asset that Mr Weston and his successors bequeathed us,” writes columnist ROBERT MACKLIN.
Having just launched my pean of praise for Charles Weston in The Man Who Planted Canberra with at least three million trees and shrubs, I am terrified that the trees in my suburb of Weston will be the end of us.
And I am deadly serious.
I don’t blame Mr Weston. He did a brilliant job in turning the national capital into his “dream city” where the designer Walter Burley Griffin failed.
But he presumed that subsequent authorities would tend to his creation that led the “garden city” movement into even greater comfort and pleasure for its residents.
He did not – could not – anticipate the Barr government that would destroy Canberra’s financial foundation in service to a 19th century technology – the tram.
He could not imagine (who could?) that after 24-years in charge, its health system would have people waiting four hours to be treated, and the neglect of its arboreal riches would threaten the lives of its men, women and children.
The Weston suburban experience is a sad example.
When we moved into our home unit in Mountview Estate which overlooks Cooleman Court, in 2003, the gully that carries the storm waters into the drainage system had been planted with a well-spaced grove of young eucalypts and some exotic shrubbery.
It made for a pleasant walk through the park to the shops and the restaurants. Cooleman Court hosted a Woolworths, and the full range of necessities on the ground floor; upstairs a gym, more coffee, pop-up dress shops and a Reject shop upstairs. All with adequate parking.
Then three big things happened:
- The government opened more suburbs to the west – Coombs, Wright and way out to Whitlam and Jacka – without a decent Cooleman Court equivalent. Shopping and even parking there is now a horrible, scary experience.
- They wrecked the Griffin/Weston plan for a compact garden city in favour of a spread-eagled expansion
- They destroyed our city’s financial integrity with a tram network that neither served the majority nor replaced the private traffic.
Trapped in penny-pinch mode, they walked away from the essential servicing of the magnificent asset that Mr Weston and his successors bequeathed us.
But what really worries me is the Weston gully. It is now a firebomb waiting to explode and the lighting spark called summer is nearly upon us.
In 2003 we had a view from the back deck across the suburbs to Mt Taylor. That finally disappeared three weeks ago behind a mighty wall of the gully’s fire-loving eucalypts now up to 30 metres high.
Their great branches wave to the places that will inevitably create the spark that allows them to crack their seeds in the flames of procreation. And as we know from the last great firestorm, the wind speed will trap the residents in their homes.
I dare not think of the horror awaiting the crowded shoppers in Cooleman Court, for that’s where the gully leads.
When Weston experimented with species from around the world, he chose the several hundred that passed his trenchant examination of suitability for our soils and weather.
We got lucky; so many passed the test that he was able to spread many different species across the city.
Unlike Sydney and Melbourne, for example, where very few species protect their people. When climate change kills them, our trees would still bathe Canberra in shade.
We had the best arboreal protection in the world. But only if we cared for it.
Then came the Barr government.
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