Save the HV McKay Gardens

Dear Member,

As a parliamentary representative in the Western Suburbs I write to you to express my distress at the proposals by Melbourne Airport Rail and the Victorian Department of Transport for the HV McKay Memorial Gardens. Contrary to all previous information provided to the public, Melbourne Airport Rail proposes to slice off a section of the Garden along its entire length (removing a famous existing garden bed and remaining heritage items), construct a batter embankment, removing the most historically significant relationship between the Gardens and the Harvester factory site (the visual connection) and to add insult to injury, declines to provide even minimal sound mitigation although the noise source from trains will now be both far more frequent and intruding into the Gardens by an additional ten meters.

As I am sure you are aware the McKay Memorial Gardens are of great historical significance. The McKay Gardens are the oldest and most significant remaining industrial garden in Australia. They are a significant element of the cultural development of Victoria and a physical representation of the complex relationship between urban planning, manufacturing (HV McKay) and workers conditions (the Harvester Award). This relationship can only be understood so long as the visual connection between the Sunshine Estate, the McKay Gardens and the factory site remains. Heritage Victoria’s statement of significance includes:

The H V McKay Memorial Gardens … are a key component of a wider complex envisaged by McKay, which also included the factory, offices and a housing estate for the workers. The McKay Gardens and associated elements in Sunshine are a rare and early example of the application of garden city planning principles. The role of the Gardens in the scheme can still be appreciated as the fabric of the Gardens is relatively intact and the spatial relationship of the gardens to the factory site and housing estate is still readily understood.

I respectfully call upon you to make representations to oblige Melbourne Airport Rail to revert to the proposal originally put to the community: to move the Airport Link to the outer edge of the rail corridor away from the Gardens, to maintain a clear space between the Gardens and the rail corridor the width of the Exxon Avgas line, to use modern, refined pier and beam construction methods to elevate the link in order to maintain some visual connection between the Gardens and the Harvester site and to install sound mitigation measures not less than those provided by the elevated rail developments in the Eastern suburbs.

Yours sincerely