Campbell Parade Clean Up On The Cards

By Marcus Braid on June 30, 2015 in News

Waverley Council’s three-year trial of an outdoor dining precinct on Campbell Parade outside the Pacific Bondi Beach development will be used as a pilot project for a possible upgrade of the entire beachfront promenade.

One million dollars’ worth of streetscaping, footpath work and semi-permanent dining furniture will be constructed outside the Pacific, which will be paid for by the developer.

Waverley Mayor Sally Betts said the project “could make all the difference” to Campbell Parade, acknowledging the entire street needs improvement.

“The issue is that there is not a consistent look,” she said. “It is not the look that one would expect of a world-class iconic beach environment.

“You can see from pictures of, say, Rio, and you just know that’s Rio. It would be great if there was an image people looked at and said, ‘That’s the amazing Bondi’. We just need something that is smart, nice, tidy and consistent.”

Designs for a dining precinct outside the multi-million dollar Pacific development were approved after close collaboration with Council.

“Currently it doesn’t have a good look,” Cr Betts said. “We haven’t had a great vision for that area.

“It has never delivered to us what we wanted, which was a beautiful image of what Bondi and Campbell Parade could look like.

“We have a footpath seating policy and Campbell Parade looks terrible. We have looked at it over the years, time and time again, and nothing has ever happened.

“The Pacific came to us and asked us if we would consider a different configuration of footpath seating, and so we then took it to Council and Council agreed to work with them on a trial project. We are at that stage.”

Cr Betts said the area outside the Pacific is a larger area than the rest of the Campbell Parade promenade, and transferring the concept to a smaller area would need research, along with an appropriate cost structure.

“We’re talking about a three-year trial and then we would look at the concept and see how we could take that concept all along Campbell Parade,” she said.

“If we did this, Council would own the images and idea so that we could use that ourselves for other cafes.

“We’ve agreed that they can go ahead on a trial basis. During that trial basis, we’ll talk to all the other shopkeepers and if they like it, then we will adopt that as our new type of footpath seating covering.”

Cr Betts has identified the Bondi Plan of Management and upgrade of the beachfront as a cornerstone of her mayoralty.

“The Bondi Pavilion and Plan of Management were things we really wanted to fix up and make our streets nicer and cleaner, so this will help cement that image,” Cr Betts said. “We’ll have a really world-class venue.

“By the time we’ve finished and we’ve redone the Pavilion, it will just be absolutely beautiful and amazing, something we can be really proud of. After all these years, the grand old lady of the Pavilion and all its surrounds will just look stunning.”