21 December 2006

Naval Station Towers Demolished

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So I just caught at the tail end of the SBS news some images of the (rather iconic, to my mind) red and white radio towers at Lawson [Belconnen Naval Station] being felled. Seems like something someone would have mentioned…did anyone happen to catch the action?

Considering there was talk a while back of keeping them as a heritage site, I guess it’s not so surprising that nobody in authority was making a big deal over it…

ED – here’s WIN’s footage of the demolition:

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I guess now the people of Kaleen and Giralang can stop complaining about TV interferance!!! Ironically the actual antenna (which was stung in a T shape on the 3 masts) on these masts was taken down years ago, but people still complained.

No, Deakin Telephone Exchange is a decoy. Pizza Hut at Weston is where it all really happens.

Re: I rea din some conspiracy website that the site has an underground base and is connected to NASA and all sorts of weird stuff!

I thought that was meant to be in the basement of the Deakin telephone exchange…

Re: I wonder how much the new blocks of land will cost?
Well for an example, those infill blocks next to the high tension power lines (hello cancer cluster) called Majura Rise in North Watson were running at around $270K for 450sq m – that’s about $100K more for 100sq m less than at Wells Station just 4 minutes up the road.
Given this land is so close to Belconnen town centre, you could probably add an easy $50K a block.
Great town to be trying to get into the property market in this one…

ripping up the mats would do more harm than good
Cause building houses on it ain’t gonna do no harm.

I don’t think they can sell all the land for housing as there are massive wire mats under the earth around each tower. The towers were just the *visible* part of the antennae system. I believe an environmental assessment a few years ago concluded that ripping up the mats would do more harm than good. Happy to be corrected – I can’t source that assessment.

I really think that Australia doesn’t value it’s heritage enough. Things like these towers had such an impact on the local area, and played a very large part in navy communications for 4 decades, that it should have at least been considered for heritage listing. If the land around the area is contaminated, i wonder how long they will have to work to get it prepared for subdividing.

Danman, Simon will find someway of selling it! 🙂

VY Land can not sell yet – they still have PCB contaminated dirt on stie and I remember somethign else about asbestos cement buried on site – and on inspection a few years back – there are plenty of asbestos warnings up there.

VYBerlinaV8_now with_added_grunt8:20 am 21 Dec 06

I wonder how much the new blocks of land will cost?

why not – it had WW2 deep pacific submarine communication abilities back in the day. Additionally – that abandoned complex between GDE and turnoff to Elenborough street on barton Hwy is heritage listed as well (I think) – it was also a naval transmitter/reciever wirth backup diesel generator – used in wartime transmissions as well.

If thats not significant national cultural heritage then nothing is.

I cannot believe anyone actually contemplated this for a heritage site. I mean, seriously.

Sheet – and I missed it.

Would have been worth not going to work to video this.

Defence put out a media release about this, it seems:

“Defence today removed the three 183m decommissioned low-frequency towers at the Navy Transmitting Station Belconnen in Lawson.

The removal of the towers was approved by the Minister for Environment and Heritage, Senator the Hon. Ian Campbell in January 2006.

Approval for the towers’ removal was subject to Defence following a strict range of approval conditions to protect the site environment and heritage values.

The towers were taken down by controlled fall. Selected guy wires on each tower were severed using small cutting charges at guy ground anchor points, allowing the tower to fall over in a planned direction.

The towers will now be cut up and removed from the site for recycling. One segment of a tower will be retained on site for possible future static display.

ACT WorkCover and ACT Policing were involved in the development of appropriate safeguards for the towers’ removal operation and to minimise any traffic disruption.”

Well, the last time a major monument was demolished in this town with publicity, it didn’t end spectacularly well. So nobody really wants to repeat that…

Wow, can’t believe this happened so suddenly, with no warning. I drive down baldwin drive every day and didn’t notice at all this afternoon. As soon as i read the post, i drove down to have a look. It’s so eerie to see the massive expanse of lawson so dark. It was such a landmark in the Belconnen area. So annoyed that it wasn’t mentioned in the media at all.

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