Dear
Clover,
We trust
you received our recent correspondence regarding our frustrations with the lack
of support and bureaucratic obstacles created by Redfern Waterloo Authority-
the current landlords, for the operation of the Eveleigh Locomotive heritage
blacksmithing workshop. Our letters to
the RWA board members was met with what has become a customary code of silence.
The past
SHFA Manager- Steve Montgomery was extremely pro-active and supportive of our
operation and it’s integration into the Park, however for the entire three
years the RWA have been the managing body all requests for discussion on the
operating heritage blacksmithing workshop, or any property maintenance issues
have been ignored. It seems RWA saw any recognition and assistance with the
floor problem on their part as an acceptance of Wrought Artworks existence and
tenure. Obviously we forced their hand by taking the responsibility of repairing
the floor hazard ourselves, and shockingly have now received a letter
terminating our license and eviction.
What is
transpiring at the Eveleigh Locomotive Workshops must rank as one of the
saddest episodes in Australian heritage machinery conservation. The Heritage
and Conservation bodies, the community, yourself, and ourselves were early on
promised that the correct approach would be taken. This was backed up with a
large number of reports and studies, which have subsequently been largely
ignored. In 1997 a $300,000 State Heritage grant, supposed to be matched
dollar-for-dollar by the ATP, for the restoration of the machinery collection
to become operational did not get spent on its intended purpose.
Representations and promises made to us from
Government Departments in those early years, with Wrought Artworks’ inclusion,
as the operators of the heritage blacksmithing shop, in the conditions of the
Development Consent given by the Minister of Urban Affairs and Planning gave us
the assurance and confidence to build up a good business. A business based on
the Victorian blacksmithing equipment in our care. In fact we are now
considered top of our field by heritage architects and primarily work on
conservation and Victorian style reproduction ironwork for greater Sydney. We
have only just now completed all the service infrastructure and the operation
manuals required to run a safe concern. The recommissioning and maintenance of
all the serviceable machines in our care is 90 % there.
This is the result of 17 years of tireless,
genuine effort and lobbying on the part of ourselves, a handful of visionary
people (such as yourself), and a stream of apprentices. Most of the years were
funded primarily with Eveleighs’ dirt, our sweat and passionate spirit for the
place. Used by the Government and the
initial developer to placate the community, to care for the machinery when no
one else did and to come up a philosophy for the long term, we are now being
considered as unnecessary by an incompliant, money hungry authority with
short-term expectations. Aided and abetted by the devious State Planning
Minister. With no accountability? How did these wolves in lambs clothing
infiltrate the State Labour Party?
Bolstered by the completion of the building
for The Ministry of Defense, by the commencement of the new building for
Channel Seven, and the hosting of some celebrity events (such as the MTV Awards
this weekend), it appears the RWA wishes to silence the anvils ring and use the
blacksmithing shop as a film shoot location only. To capitalize on the rare,
authentic setting the RWA have sent the eviction unconscionably. It wouldn’t
take long for the idle machinery to lose their interest and any hand cartable
industrial artifacts to be lifted by whomever.
RWA may
want control of the blacksmithing shop, but without the human factor the value
of the collection and the trade skill fostered here (we have 5 apprentices at
present), along with the usefulness of the facility for Sydney’s heritage
maintenance, will be lost forever.
We are
taking legal advise at present and remain confident that the eviction is
unlawful. We hope from this that the workshop can obtain a license to operate
in perpetuity, and not at the mercy of a Government Agency that is
unaccountable, unwilling to look at our efforts retrospectively and with no
permanence in planning.
It is
bad governance that can allow Robert Domm
(CEO of RWA) to act on such a subjective level with no foresight or in his
words to substantiate his decree “Whatever agreement existed in the past with
you is history”.
But ask
of you as Lord Mayor of Sydney and past great supporter of our efforts to
assist our apprentices and us in carrying on what is right.
Yours
sincerely,
Guido
Gouverneur
Blacksmith
Wrought
Artworks
P.O Box
357
Alexandria
1435