THE Shire of Mundaring adopted a new heritage strategy in last week’s council meeting, despite multiple groups expressing concern over missing pieces.

The strategy creates a framework for protecting the shire’s many heritage sites and ensuring information about heritage areas is correct and up to date.

Mundaring and Hills Historical Society (MHHS) member Jenny Johnson said the presence of a designated heritage officer within the shire would prevent any queries or issues surrounding heritage in Mundaring shire from slipping through the cracks and would be significantly cheaper than hiring an outside contractor to survey and catalogue new possible heritage sites.

“Even with a hired company to oversee things, cases could still be overlooked. A local expert would know the area and understand exactly what they’re dealing with,” she said.

“We have people in the community with doctorates in heritage conservation, so the expertise is there to utilise.”

Ms Johnson expressed concern that community resources were running thin without support from council, and the effectiveness of heritage cataloguing could suffer as a result.

“Who do the community contact with heritage inquiries? MHHS has minimal funding to carry out the admin role for staff and councillors,” she said.

MHHS member Jeff Murray said he doubted hiring a heritage officer was something that would come to pass, however a volunteer-based heritage advisory group working with the Shire of Mundaring would likely be a better option to get the work done and keep the cost to council and the community low.

Mr Murray said volunteers put in hours of work through the now-disbanded local heritage survey review working group’, but with more than 100 newly submitted heritage sites as yet uncatalogued, he said volunteers would need more help coordinating research efforts, and the proposed solution of the shire’s cultural advisory group taking administrating the project would not be sufficient.

"This project was a tremendous effort by just six volunteers,'' he said.

"If you believe the CAG will be able to perform the same role when they meet just twice a year and don’t have the same interest or historical experience as our members, I believe you are underestimating the work involved.''

He said reinstating the previous volunteer group would be the most time and cost-effective solution.
“A dedicated heritage officer or team is warranted, who can not only provide advice but who have strong connections to local history groups,” he said.

Jarrah Friends, an environmental advocacy group working in the Perth hills, raised the issue of the omission of reference to the Aboriginal Heritage Act.

Group secretary Dr Stevie Braun said planning for an Aboriginal heritage archaeological survey to take place in the area as part of the heritage strategy was vital to its ongoing success.

But Dr Braun said the shire’s decision to move forward with the strategy despite its imperfections and get the ball rolling on an official framework for protecting Shire of Mundaring’s heritage was ultimately the right move.

“My feelings are that the Shire of Mundaring is wise to identify the need to get a heritage strategy off the ground, still with ‘imperfections,’ and improve and evolve it as time goes on,’’ she said.

“This itself is a milestone and one that will lead to laying more heritage foundation stones.’’

In the July 9 meeting, councillor Neridah Zlatnik said passing the new heritage strategy now, despite its argued flaws, would pave the way for later improvements.

“Perfect is the enemy of good,’’ she said.

“This heritage policy is not perfect, but it is good.

“It is one step forward for making decisions about heritage.

“It can be tweaked later.

"We need to have a go and then make improvements.

“If this strategy, and many of these actions that have been flagged that will improve how we appreciate heritage in our community, do put increased burden on those local resources, which are volunteer based, then that is feedback we should have coming back to council, so we can assess how those resources are funded.

“We won’t know what that burden is until we have the strategy approved and in place being acted on so we can see what it looks like on the ground.”

The shire voted unanimously to pass the strategy as it currently stands, along with a new sustainability policy, with commitment to continue improvements over the rest of the year.