page_title: Hamersley, Western Australia
section_title: Suburban development
hierarchical_section_title: Hamersley, Western Australia / History / Suburban development
caption_attribution_description: Part of the Rannoch-Tay-Earn Reserve looking northwest along the former Carine Road in w:Hamersley, Western Australia.
context_page_description: Hamersley is a residential suburb 14 kilometres north-northwest of the central business district of Perth, the capital of Western Australia, and six kilometres from the Indian Ocean. The suburb adjoins two major arterial roads—Mitchell Freeway to the west and Reid Highway to the south—and is within the City of Stirling local government area. It was built during the late 1960s and 1970s as part of the Government of Western Australia's response to rapidly increasing land prices across the metropolitan area.
  Before development, Hamersley was a remote district covered in jarrah, marri, banksia and other vegetation typical of the Swan Coastal Plain, with small areas cleared for small-scale agriculture such as market gardening and poultry farming. By 1974, six years after the first subdivision, Hamersley was home to the district's first community hall, an annual parade and fair which were broadcast on Perth TV and radio, an active progress association, and its own newspaper, the Hamersley Gazette, a forerunner to today's Stirling Times. Rapid growth further north removed the focus from Hamersley, which was completed in 1981 and has remained relatively stable since then.
context_section_description: In June 1970, the Metropolitan Region Planning Authority released land in the southwestern corner of Hamersley, which had previously been held in reserve under the Metropolitan Region Scheme for a large freeway interchange between the future Mitchell Freeway (then known as Stephenson Freeway) and Reid Highway (North Perimeter Freeway). The result of these changes was to allow the construction of Walter Way, Dutton Crescent and connecting streets, which were named after racing drivers from the 1920s and 1930s.
  Between 1971 and 1973, reserves, public recreation areas and drainage sites were set aside in western Hamersley, and facilities were erected in quick succession – the 1st Hamersley Scout Group in 1973, the colonial-style Holy Cross Anglican Church in 1974, and a community hall at Aintree Street in 1975. Residents in the region were at this time on the fringe of Perth's suburban area, relying on partly built main roads, distant shopping centres and overstretched local facilities for several years after the suburb's construction. A locally produced fortnightly newspaper, the Hamersley Gazette, started in early 1973 by Peter Flanigan, from his home in Manton Court, covering the suburbs of Carine, Hamersley, Warwick and Greenwood, with the open aim of helping to form community associations and campaign for better facilities. A July 1973 article, for example, lamented that "work on Erindale Road appears to have come to a standstill... great piles of dirt and unmade road surfaces bear testimony to the fact that something is going on, or should be going on, but this one is taking a very long time."
  However, there were also celebrations – the paper reported in detail on the annual Glendale Spring Fair, held between 1973 and 1976 by the Glendale P&C Association on the second Saturday in November. It included activities for children, marching bands provided by The Salvation Army and the Australian 10th Light Horse Regiment, and a parade along Glendale Avenue and Beach Road at 10:30 am. Intended originally as a fundraiser for the school, the Gazette reported that it was "a sort of glorified féte that rapidly outgrew its origins", with live coverage of the parade on ABC radio and on television station TVW-7 and personalities such as Jeff Newman in attendance. The fair, however, became the victim of a dispute over naming rights between the Glendale P&C, community groups and commercial sponsors. Other events included the grand opening of Warwick Grove Shopping Centre on 13 November 1974, the greening of Aintree-Eglinton Reserve and the activities of the Hamersley Progress Association. The paper was acquired in February 1977 by Bill Marwick of the Wanneroo Times, and evolved into the Stirling Times in 1980.
  Meanwhile, work was only starting in eastern Hamersley. In 1973 Project Homes acquired a poultry farm and agricultural holding, and completed the construction of Vickers Street and adjoining roads, with Don Place becoming a display village. In 1974 the City of Stirling agreed, after complex negotiations, to sell 4.2 hectares of land comprising Carine Road and Allen Street to the State Housing Commission and to War Service Homes in order to "facilitate a satisfactory subdivisional design of adjoining land held by the State Housing Commission" in the eastern portion of the suburb. All that remains of these two early roads are paved pathways within the Rannoch-Tay-Earn Reserve, which was gazetted in 1976. By July 1975, 200 defence service homes were under construction on land immediately to the east of Erindale Road, to be made available to veterans from March 1976. The rest of eastern Hamersley was built over the next few years, and by 1981 development was essentially complete. The community hall was redeveloped into a full-fledged community centre, which officially opened in 1990.
  Despite Hamersley's stability in the years since 1981 and its relatively low crime rate, it has periodically drawn the attention of the Perth media. In July 2000, a man bludgeoned his former girlfriend, mother-of-two Deborah Boyd, to death in a rented 
caption: Rannoch-Tay-Earn Reserve, looking northwest along the former Carine Road
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