CHRIS THOMSON
Weld Square at the corner of Beaufort and Newcastle Streets is set to be co-badged ‘Wongi Park’ under a $652,000 overhaul of the clapped-out inner-Perth reserve.
oneperth.com.au can reveal the South West Aboriginal Land and Sea Council gave its imprimatur to the new name on February 3.
In the Noongar language, ‘Wongi’ means ‘to talk’ or ‘have a chat’.
In endorsing the name, the land and sea council agreed Weld Square had long been a place where Noongar people chatted.
The name has been a long time in the conferring, with oneperth.com.au revealing in January last year that the City of Vincent would consult on a Noongar co-name for the park.
Weld Square is currently European in design, featuring mature Moreton Bay figs, grassy expanses and a brick toilet block.
However, two squiggly paths intersecting in a rough ‘X’ at a $28,000 gazebo give plan for the park (pictured, left) the look of a Central Australian sand painting.
The three-year revamp would see raised, native gardens installed along the southern flanks of the square.
The existing brick toilet block would be demolished at a cost of $14,000. A self-cleaning toilet would rise in its place for a whopping $140,000 – or 21.5 per cent of the project price.
An $18,000 permanent ping pong table and $15,000 electric barbecue would also be installed.
By its mooted 2013 completion date, the park would also receive a new $55,000 playground and $40,000 of outdoor gym equipment.
Design elements would discourage homeless people staying overnight in the gazebo or on new seats. This is despite Manna Industries’ charity six-night-a-week food service having sustained homeless people at the park since 1996.
Weld Square was originally built over 26 years – from 1873 to 1899.
A recommendation that its new name and revamp plans finally go out for public consultation will face yet another debate at Vincent council on Tuesday night.
Either way, \"whopping\" = perthnow style journalism.
Definition of blog:
\"Web site on which an individual or group of users record opinions, information, etc. on a regular basis\"
Sounds like a blog to me, what\’s your problem with this term? Old media is dead, news sites are dead, social media and blogging has taken over.
Embrace it.
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Au contraire – the reporter has been using the term ‘whopping’ since before the online tabloid you mention was a glint in Rupert’s eye.
Your definition of blog describes a blog reasonably adequately. But it doesn’t describe this site.
Newspapers may well be heading the way of the dodo, but I see no evidence that news sites will anytime soon.
On what do most bloggers base their posts? Information from news articles.
With no news as source material, bloggers would have nothing but their cats, kiddies and eggs Benedict to blog about.
As modern-day opinion pieces, blog posts are dandy.
That’s why sites such as the aforementioned and – its two local clones – have appropriated blogging in a doomed bid to imbue their vapid offerings with some stiff kind of soul.
oneperth.com.au abhors this and will not insult its readers by “embracing” it.
Ed
Nice design, something to look forward to.
I giggled at the amateurish OMG!!! “whopping” description of the cost of the self cleaning toilets. I guess the blogger doesn’t know much about this technology.
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It is your reading that lacks sophistication, Tim.
The term ‘whopping’ is appropriate for the new toilet’s price given a dunny block already exists there, and that the self-cleaning one will make up more than a fifth of the park’s project cost.
oneperth.com.au is not a blog, and we do not engage in blogging.
That said, I agree the new design does look quite nice. Hopefully we see it translated to reality some time this decade.
Ed