The old Gosford Library building has been given a possible reprieve.

4 December 2024

 

LOCAL councils are the responsible authority for the protection and ongoing compliance of locally significant heritage items’ and Central Coast Council is no exception - recognising and protecting local heritage is paramount. Yet the plan to demolish the 'Sydney School Nuts and Berries' building lacked any vision. It was nothing more than an exercise in penny pinching; a principle that was not applied to the improvements spent on the ageing Wyong Civic Centre building.

 

The Wyong building received a $4 million windfall that was kept from ratepayers and the community in general.

 

The NSW Government Architect’s design principles for the new library building and the old library opposite, as spelled out in the Urban Design Framework for Kibble Park, Gosford’s Heart - the old library should be repurposed as a community asset. But council staff, running their own quasi empire, were prepared, with the support of the previous administrator, to obliterate the heritage, culture and history of the Region in the name of concrete.

 

The design and construction of the old Gosford Library brought together a unique collaboration of mid-century architectural and building professionals from Sydney and Canberra. Despite Gosford’s rural location, the use of groundbreaking modernist techniques, applications and materials directly associate to other iconic modernist buildings - i.e. The National Carillon, the Academy of Science, and the Australia Square - gave Gosford a unique and modern building.

 

There is little doubt that a failure of Council’s due diligence as responsible authorities has occurred in the past. but should this continue? Gosford Library received two commissioned reports (2003 and 2016) and a recent recommendation to include it on the local heritage list. Yet despite The National Trust, The Australian Institute of Architects and Docomomo, all verifying the heritage significance of the library building, Council vehemently continued to deny its worth. The fact that Gosford Library in not being heritage listed on the Council’s LEP demonstrates an apathy for the Region's local heritage and its social value.

 

Community activist and local resident, Joy Cooper said, "In other areas we find heritage buildings integrated with modern architecture to give a sense of civic pride, creativity, inclusion and architectural tapestry. The Kibble Park library building could be repurposed into a café, restaurant, exhibition space, performance space, community hub.

 

"Apart from a few new towers of Babylon, Gosford remains a dead city with a dead heart. It needs multiple community buildings with multiple purposes to bring people back into its heart.

 

Many generations now have memories of growing up with the Gosford Library building and we know they are enthusiastic about seeing it retained, as integral to the future vision of what Gosford could be," Joy Cooper said.

 

Public historian Merril Jackson OAM said that just like the City of Sydney, who protect and maintain their modernist Sydney Opera House, to preserve Gosford Library for future generations in the City of Gosford is the right decision; "a story of our layered architectural heritage, and the thousands of people and organisations loudly protesting the right for this important mid-century building to be repurposed in our urban landscape."

 

At last weeks Council meeting it was revealed that only six public submissions had been received upon which Council based the worth of the old Gosford Library building - yet, so far, there have been 1774 signatures online and another 1053 on paper petitions calling for this building to be saved and repurposed.

 

Joy Cooper said to the Councillors at last week's Council meeting, "Can the NSW Government Architect, the Australian Institute of Architects and the National Trust and more than 2800 people all be wrong? That’s the question you need to answer when you decide whether to go ahead with the administrator’s decision to demolish the present Gosford Library building in Kibble Park or at the very least call for a review of how that decision was arrived at."

 

Council voted to suspend the previous decision pending further investigations into keeping and repurposing the old Gosford Library building.

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