REDFERN: Back in 1985 Redfern Station won the Best Station Garden competition over 90 other railway stations. It took nine months for its dedicated Station Master, Hilton South, to create the beautiful flowerbeds, and he and his staff worked long hours on their own time to maintain them.
“I would have loved to meet him”, said Desley Haas, an Alexandria resident who, together with a group of residents and local community organisations including REDWatch, is talking to Council and Railcorp in the hope of resuscitating the once-flourishing gardens.
“The station used to win prizes for the gardens, and it is quite sad to see it run-down like that … you know, people actually cared about the station. All we’re suggesting is to put it back to like it was. There are 50,000 people that come through that station every day, so why not make it a pleasant experience for people, rather than just something to hurry through?” Ms Haas said.
The people behind the Alexandria café, The Grounds, entrepreneur Ramsey Choker and horticulturalist Erin Marin, have expressed interest in working on Platform 10: “We could start tomorrow once they [Railcorp] give us permission. The idea was that we could get in there, plant the gardens to show what can be done, and from that point on try to get the community more involved and keep the garden going. There’s a lot of support from everywhere, we just need permission.”
Parcels of land on both sides of Platform 10 with exits to the Australian Technology Park are earmarked for the gardens. Land includes “the triangle”, a small fenced-up area on the right-hand side of the ATP exit from the station on Cornwallis Street, which is currently unused and filled with detritus.
Despite still waiting for Railcorp to grant permission for [ATP’s] gardeners to start working on the plot, Craig Dickson, the ATP Facilities Manager, is confident: “ATPSL (Australian Technology Park Sydney Limited) are currently engaged with Desley [Haas] and remain optimistic that approval for ATPSL to pay for the upgrade to the garden bed on the corner of Cornwallis Street will be granted in the very near future.”
Quotes from Hilton South recorded in 1985 describe the positive effect the gardens had on staff and passengers: “The commuters are very happy about it, I’m happy, the staff’s involved in it and it brightens the place up.” The next few months will show if history can be repeated.
