12606862-AV22-23
August 4, 2023
All smiles before Freo shocks Cats
(Ivan Kemp) 350272_13
It was all smiles before Geelong’s round 20 clash against Fremantle at GMHBA Stadium on Saturday, July 29. The Cats were raging favourites on their home deck, but Freo played its best game of the season to cause a huge upset to win by seven points. Andrew McLennan (pictured) flew in from Perth to support the Dockers while local Fay Mullen took along her friends Sally Freeman and Cathy Bright, who travelled all the way from Coffs Harbour. It was Andrew who was smiling at the end of the game, though. Geelong plays at GMHBA Stadium twice for the remainder of the season including a massive clash against Port Adelaide on Saturday night. ■ More pictures: Page 27.
Fear for heritage building By Matt Hewson Local heritage experts have expressed their shock over indications a significant 152-year-old building in Geelong’s Woolstores Industrial Heritage Area will be demolished to make way for the proposed Geelong Convention and Exhibition Centre. Despite reassurances the building would be incorporated into the convention centre’s design, images released by federal, state and local governments last week showed no sign of the two-storey Waverley building on the corner of Gheringhap Street and Western Beach Road. Geelong and Region Branch National Trust representative Jennifer Bantow said her members were “devastated”. “We’ve been involved in consultation over the centre’s plans for about two years, and the Office of the Victorian Architect advised us months
ago that Waverley would be incorporated into the design,” Mrs Bantow said. “Now we discover the assurances we received … were untrue, and that Waverley’s demolition will be another example of authorities not wanting to conserve the character of our local distinctive identity. “This will take us right back to the 1980s when Geelong also lost the unique Bow Truss Woolstores to the wrecker’s ball.” Mrs Bantow said convention centre designers may not have understood the significance of the building to Geelong’s heritage as a port city. The building, constructed in 1871 by prolific Geelong architects Alexander Davidson and George Henderson, is noted as one of the earliest houses in Australia to feature cavity-wall construction, which reduces damp and assists with thermal and noise insulation. Waverley sits within a City of Greater
Geelong heritage overlay with an individual citation and has been altered and extended over the past century, with Deakin University receiving a National Trust Heritage Award in 2014 for its restoration work on the building. National Trust member Jack Herd called on Development Victoria to revise its convention centre plans and incorporate Waverley into the design. “It would be an insult to the legacy of Geelong’s prolific architectural history to knock over one of the most misunderstood but important pieces of that legacy,” he said. A state government spokesperson said Regional Development Victoria and Development Victoria had overseen a competitive tender process for procurement and construction of the Geelong Convention and Exhibition Centre, but the planning application had not yet been submitted to the Department of Transport and Planning.
Jennifer Bantow (right) and fellow National Trust members and supporters hope to save Waverley from demolition. (Ivan Kemp) 351396_02
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