Portal:Australia/Featured article/Week 12, 2007

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Hamersley is a residential suburb 14 kilometres (8 mi) NNW of the central business district of Perth, the capital of Western Australia, and six kilometres (4 mi) 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. Prior to development, Hamersley was a remote district covered in jarrah, marri, banksia and other vegetation typical of the Swan Coastal Plain, with small areas having been 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.