WINGECARRIBEE Council will ask the public to comment on a concept plan for a living museum and cultural centre and botanic gardens at the old Skin Shed site in Bowral.
Council voted on Wednesday to exhibit the concept plan presented by Mayor Duncan Gair in a Mayoral Minute.
The proposal includes display gardens, a sensory garden, sculpture garden, seasonal display garden and amphitheatre set among the existing ponds at the corner of Kangaloon Road and Old South Road.
The community cultural centre could include areas for indigenous, historical and arts and cultural displays, set around a “great hall.”
Bowral resident Paul Ramsay, head of the Ramsay Property Group, commissioned Marchese Partners International to create the concept plan at no cost to council and Bowral landscape designers Chris and Charlotte Webb have prepared the landscape plan.
Cr Gair said the Wingecarribee Shire had a growing population and had reached a stage where it needed a community cultural centre.
“It may be a five or 10 year plan or may never happen, but unless you put an idea out there, you don’t get a response to anything,” he said.
Cr Gair said there were many areas still to be investigated, including funding of the project.
“The report does say there is no money and I recognise the fact that there is no money.
“It is just an idea that should have community comment.
“…Nothing there is final. It is a concept design; it is there for the public to comment and the Council to comment on as well.
“It might all fall over. I have no grand expectations other than it might work.”
Cr Gair said possible funding sources could include government grants, developer contributions and philanthropic gifts.
But Cr Ken Halstead said while he had no objection to the botanic gardens, he was concerned about where funding would be found for the community centre.
“I wouldn’t want Council to commit to anything other than minimal landscaping,” he said.
“You’ve got no hope now of getting State Government funding or even Federal Government funding.”
Arts and Council Board chairman Juliet Arkwright said that the concept plan did not define the purpose of the building, and whether it would include performance spaces.
“A performance space is a very different concern to a community centre and its location is very important,” she said.
Cr Arkwright said Wingecarribee Shire was not on the radar of touring theatre companies and there was a need to establish a performance venue.
However, she warned that against an “idealistic rush of blood to the head” that could lead any councillor to think that they could come up with a concept and achieve it in the current term.
Cr Arkwright also pointed out that the gift of the concept plan should have been dealt with by the yet-to-be formed independent Wingecarribee Arts Trust (WAT) for public arts.
Cr Larry Whipper also expressed concern about raising false hopes in the community about “quite an adventurous proposal”.
But Deputy Mayor Graham McLaughlin supported the exhibition of the plan.
“If we don’t ever make a stand, it will never happen,” he said.
The concept plan will be placed on public exhibition at the Moss Vale Civic Centre until the end of the year.
Council has asked for a report on the community response early in 2010.
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