John Woodward

2014 candidate for City of West Torrens.
Heritage survey responses.

1. What do you think Council's role is in protecting and conserving heritage?
   Council has a vital and active role to play in conserving the heritage elements of our community.

2. What measures and incentives do you support to protect and conserve local heritage?
   I believe true heritage properties should have the community value and appeal of their property reflected costs applied by all areas of government. This would provide a financial incentive to maintain and retain heritage properties. Well maintained heritage properties are less likely to be sold for re-development. Given the limited number of properties would have a minor impact on revenue.

3. What is the most important heritage protection issue in your local government area?
   The destruction of the housing ~1930s housing...subdividing and building attached dwellings that have no visual alignment with the rest of the street / suburb.

4. What policies and programs will you advocate to protect and conserve heritage in your local area?
   See question 6.

5. Do you support local Councils retaining development approval powers for projects over $3m in value?
   These type of projects are likely to impact the community, so council should have a voice as a key stakeholder and community representative.

6. Do you have any other thoughts about the protection of heritage in your Council area?
   The more heritage properties are used by the community, the more likely they are to survive. Commercial use of heritage properties should be considered. e.g. Cummins House. Alternatively, the government owned Ashford House (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashford_House) is in need of repair and has been left unused for the last year. Next year Ashford House will be used by 45 students as part of the Treetop Autism Specific School. Surely, we could find better facilities for the students and make this fabulous heritage building open and used by the general community.