IT LOOKS like a case of the sheepdog biting the sheep it’s meant to protect.
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Windsor man Scott Will feels savaged by the heritage division of the state government after he contacted them for help in preserving his historic property.
Instead of helping him, as first promised, they have stopped him working on the property – even as far as mowing or raking – until he has a site report done by a registered archaeologist.
Local historians Helen Mackay and Kate Mackaness are afraid Mr Will’s experience will result in other property owners hiding or destroying evidence of historic artefacts on their property for fear of the same treatment.
Scott Will bought the derelict home on Pitt Street behind Windsor Tollhouse in March last year, only 100m from Fitzroy Bridge, with South Creek as his back boundary.
Use of the one-acre site goes back to 1795, Mr Will said, with an early Windsor jail, then a massive tannery for almost a century, and now a red-brick 60s house, with part of the old tannery alongside.
“I had no historic background but when I saw this place, there was old chiselled stone everywhere, wooden buildings and pits, and there was a wharf here in 1827 on one map,” he said gesturing at the end of his backyard.
While the property came with an approved DA for demolition of all buildings and four house lots on the site, he wanted it as a family home, while retaining and restoring its historic relics.
He moved in with his wife and three kids aged 11, 6 and 3 and started clearing the creek bank and cleaning up the house which had been derelict for six years. In March this year he contacted the Heritage Council of NSW to let them know what he’d found and what he was doing, as the property was not heritage listed.
“I said I’d bought an old property which goes back to 1795,” Mr Will said. “They were excited and said they’d help out with grants, and write reports for me. Then I had them out here in April.
“Three people came. They didn’t say anything, just took pictures, asked questions. I gave them so much information that wasn’t on their records.”
Then suddenly on June 10 a notice headed ORDER RESTRICTING HARM was attached to his fence, saying he couldn’t touch anything on the site until July 20. If he did he could be fined $1.1m or imprisoned. He can’t even mow or rake, or prop up an iron beam in the old tannery building where a support is rotting. However the Heritage Division said they’d allow an SES officer to do the prop.
He was told he can do nothing on site until he had a full site report done by a registered archaeologist. He was bewildered by this, as it was quite different to what was said to him during the site visit on April 29.
"I was told not to dig anymore pits,” he said of the visit. “I wasn't told not to stop making my place neat and tidy. I continued to work with the best intentions to follow their instructions. When they walked around the property they did not say ‘don't dig here’ or ‘don't dig there’ only ‘stop digging out pits’. Nothing about clearing the surface to prepare for the continuation of my landscaping and repairs.”
But it’s the potential cost of the archaeologist’s report that is distressing him most. “We’re not a family with extra money,” Mr Will, a stay-at-home dad, said. “We live week by week, if not going backwards.”
A consulting archaeology firm contacted by the Gazette said it would require a report by a local historian followed by an archaeologist’s report. All up, the archaeologist said “there should be change from $10,000, I would think”.
Mr Will contacted the Nepean Archaeology Group, a group of amateur archaeologists who might have done the report for free, but the Heritage office said it had to be registered archaeologists.
Windsor historic tour operator Helen Mackay, a friend of the Wills, wrote to the Minister for Heritage, Mark Speakman last Thursday by registered mail and email and received an acknowledgment. She tried calling the minister several times as well. There has been no reply.
“Scott’s just trying to highlight and showcase the history,” Ms Mackay said. “He’s being held to ransom. He asked how he can move forward and they just said ‘employ an archaeologist’. This will stop anyone from ever putting their hand up to say they’ve got historic items on their property. I’m afraid people will destroy the historic items rather than have this happen to them.”
Windsor historian Jan Barkley-Jack contacted by the Gazette felt the Heritage Division was just doing its job, but felt sympathy for Mr Will’s situation.
“The problem rather lies in the lack of assistance and financial support and guidance for an ordinary resident that seems to be occurring,” she said. “Simply railing against a law that in other cases is necessary, seems fruitless, for him.”
Regarding the fact the site was not on any heritage list, she said the heritage division had to act when new information came to light.
“Emphasising the fact that it isn’t currently listed as a heritage site misses the point of the legislation which deals with new discoveries previously unknown or previously unthreatened with disturbance. Once the layers of deposits are disturbed, the significance is more difficult to assess.”
A spokesperson for the Heritage Division of the Office of Environment and Heritage told the Gazette that whilst the property was not listed on the State Heritage Register or Hawkesbury Local Environment Plan, an archaeological assessment (by a previous owner for the DA) determined that the remains of the tannery under the property were of local significance.
Under section 139 of the Heritage Act 1977, a person must not disturb any land if they know any relics are likely to be discovered, unless there is an excavation permit.
Regarding the punishing cost of an archaeologist’s report, the Division said it will “consider any evidence of the owner’s financial hardship” and has “offered to meet with the owner again so that a way forward can be found for the site to be recorded”.