Newcastle Post Office - Our Queen Victoria Building

Newcastle Post Office is one of many heritage significant buildings in Newcastle CBD that have been the subject of development approval and subsequently left to rot by their owners.

Other examples include the Terminus Hotel-Castlemaine Bondstore group (Scott/Bolton Sts), former ES &A Drive-in Bank (Scott/Bolton Sts), Great Northern Hotel and Empire Hotel group (Hunter St west). Others have left to decay without approval, such as the Theatre Royal, Coutts Sailors Home complex and former Victoria Theatre.

While Council is often unfairly judged to be inadequate in its endeavours to protect and encourage sympathetic redevelopment of these buildings, we have little power to prevent such occurrences.

In reality the CBD has much of its building stock in the ownership of people and companies (often absentee landlords) who are content to see their buildings lie vacant and in decay.

Others seek and gain Council development approval, simply to on-sell to other speculators at a higher price. Newcastle CBD is an attractive target for property development industry “carpet baggers”.

In the case of Newcastle Post Office, the building should have been listed in the State Heritage Register before now, to recognise its high status and to be under the heritage planning controls of the State Government who (theoretically) have greater powers to act to protect the building.

I believe most of the community is in dismay and appalled at the willful neglect of and lack of action regarding this much-loved and favourite heritage icon.

NOTICE OF MOTION - FORMER NEWCASTLE POST OFFICE

A.
1. Council notes that the former Newcastle Post Office building is listed as “State significant” in schedule 6 (Heritage) of Newcastle Local Environmental Plan (LEP) and that the State government made a commitment to Council, about 2 years ago to urgently assess all of Newcastle LEP’s state significant heritage items for listing on the State Heritage Register.

2. Council calls on the NSW Heritage Council to urgently recommend to the Minister for Planning, the listing of the former Newcastle Post Office, 96-100 Hunter St, Newcastle, on the State Heritage Register, using s.32(2) of the NSW Heritage Act.

3. Council calls on the Minister, on receipt of any such request, to urgently direct the listing of the former Newcastle Post Office building on the State Heritage Register, and to direct the owners (using Division 5 of the Act) to take immediate steps to secure the building from further damage by vandalism.

B.

Council urgently write to the owners of the building to express its dissatisfaction on behalf of the community, about the lack of action with respect to any redevelopment of the building since approval was given in 2006; and our strong concerns about the continuing and accelerating degradation to the building’s fabric.

C.

Council regards it disgraceful that the owners’ have failed to implement a regime of high level security and maintenance; and failed to act to sympathetically adaptively recycle Newcastle Post Office which,
(i) is regarded by the community as one Newcastle’s heritage icons, and
(ii) has been empty since it was sold by the Commonwealth in 2002.