Collie council aiming to rekindle heritage feel of Throssell Street building

A push to remember the history of Collie has led the town’s council to vote in favour of reconstructing the Golden Eagle restaurant’s balcony and veranda in the style of the original structure.

Up to $10,000 will be allocated to the Throssell Street project from the Collie Shire Council’s heritage incentive scheme.

Shire chief executive David Blurton said it was the type of project the long-standing scheme was intended to help with.

“It’s to try and encourage shop and property owners to think about the heritage of their building when they go to fix or build on them,” he said.

Mr Blurton said a similar project undertaken on the neighbouring Pak-it Computers turned out well.

“We put up an old bull-nose style veranda there,” he said.

“Given Throssell Street is a main avenue through town it is important for us to have that looking as good as possible. Council recognises that a historic streetscape can add a lot of value to the amenity of the area.”

The veranda was removed in 2015 after being damaged by a vehicle.

Mr Blurton said the council and the owners recognised that something needed to be done to restore the building to its previous glory.

“We’ve worked with the owners to come up with something that will look really good,” he said.

“Coordinating the whole process can be difficult and one thing we found with the Pack-it building was that it can be hard to find builders with appropriate expertise to restore heritage buildings.

“Some of those skills have been lost, but we believe it is an important project to undertake. If you go to a place like Kalgoorlie and look at the streetscapes up there it’s like stepping back in time a little bit.

“We want to make sure our heritage is remembered as well as ensuring there is a nice facade welcoming people to town, because at the moment it doesn’t look great.”