The Eveleigh Rail-yards: Community, not business!

They will, nevertheless, try, and are turning up everywhere. Greens MP Lee Rhiannon and candidate for Heffron, Ben Spies-Butcher, attended the Open Day at the CarriageWorks art space last month to highlight local concerns about the development of the Eveleigh Rail-yards. “It is wonderful to see adaptive re-use of rail buildings. The effort of the theatre and of local people to ensure the history lives on through tours and oral histories is to be commended. Unfortunately, what has been done with the CarriageWorks theatre is unlikely to be replicated across the remainder of the rail-yards,” says Ben Spies-Butcher. “The Redfern Waterloo Authority and the State Government are planning 12-story buildings over heritage sites in south Eveleigh. It is difficult to imagine that this will leave any genuine heritage value – it is a gross overdevelopment. Our conception of heritage is very different. We need living history, the maintenance of rail use, alongside the adaptive reuse of buildings.” Amazingly, the Government has proposed a development in South Eveleigh with over 700 car parking spaces – next to one of the biggest train stations in Sydney. “How can this be justified?” asks Lee Rhiannon. Ms Rhiannon says, “The Greens are committed to preserving our urban heritage. CarriageWorks is an example of what could be done over the whole Eveleigh site.”

Source: South Sydney Herald February 2007