The new year is upon us, and with it comes the promise of change.
Whether you like it or not, the City of Armadale is currently smack bang in the middle of one of the biggest periods of transformation it has ever experienced. It’s estimated that another 40,000 people will call this area home in ten years’ time. And with that boom comes the race to provide the rapidly growing community with adequate infrastructure and services.
But before we look at what’s in store this year, it’s important to look back to acknowledge what was achieved in the year just gone.
Perhaps the most momentous win for the community this year was the reopening of the Roleystone Theatre. After six long years of waiting in the wings, select members of the theatre community revelled in their chance to view their beloved building in the limelight once again at a star-studded opening gala in April.
The city also welcomed its fourth public library in September – the new $9.3 million Piara Waters Library – which earned a nod from the state government last month for its accessible architecture.
Dubbed a ‘game-changer’ for the CBD, the new Armadale TAFE was opened in August, (remarkably) ahead of time and on-budget.
And while there was not as much fanfare, the City of Armadale was also very fortunate to welcome a new purpose-built village for people with Huntington’s Disease, WA’s first Gidget House which offers peri- and post-natal support, and its first permanent water-birthing suite at the Armadale Hospital.
Like it or loathe it, the City of Armadale also became one of the very first local governments in Australia to begin sending its landfill-bound waste to be incinerated at the new Kwinana Energy Recovery Centre this year.
And there were some big developments this year that weren’t framed in bricks and mortar.
The City of Armadale, Blinds Sports WA and the Kelmscott Bulldogs played host to the first local Blind Sports League in the state at the Armadale Arena this year.
Street Aid Social Project initiated a new rotating community support hub for people sleeping rough and doing it tough.
And the city welcomed a new Noongar cultural tour experience – the Six Seasons Walking Trails, hosted by Beelya Cultural Tours.
The community celebrated a number of milestone anniversaries last year: St Mary in the Valley Anglican Church turned 150 in 2024; St Matthew’s Anglican Church congregation commemorated its 120th anniversary; Armadale Primary School students planted a tree to mark the school’s 125th year; the Bedfordale CWA ladies paid tribute to the legacy of local CWA groups at the organisation’s centenary celebrations; Bess Trevena ushered in her 100th birthday in style at Kelmscott’s MercyCare; the Kelmscott Agricultural Show Society put on its 125th show; and Roleybushcare volunteers celebrated thirty years of safeguarding local trees from dieback.
There were some outstanding local success stories in 2024.
Gwynne Park Primary school took out the state education award for “excellence in teaching learning”, and Neerigen Brook Primary students wrote the best song in the primary school category of the Australian Children’s Music Foundation’s National Songwriting Competition.
Year 10 student Eric Xie travelled to Romania in December as one of the nation’s six top scientific minds for the Junior International Science Olympiad.
Ayush Shah and Niyor Sharma, from Carey Baptist College in Harrisdale, also earned a place on Team Australia for the International Young Physicists Tournament (IYPT).
Harrisdale High’s Mihin Henkanaththegedara (Year 9), aced the 2024 Australian Geography Competition, taking out the top rank in the state for his age.
AFL premiership-winning legend Callum Ah Chee returned to his hometown to show off his bling.
Two young guns in the local baseball scene, Alessio Biancotti and Bryce Riches, headed off to Sydney to represent WA in the 2024 Australian Little League Championships.
Armadale High Jiu Jitsu Academy students raked in the medals this year in their first year of competition, with Jacob McGough crowned state champion, and earning silver at the Australian National Championships.
In a rarely seen coup, Roshan Joseph Biju won three golds at the Australian Junior Badminton Championships.
Scarlett and Savannah Nunn were both selected to run for WA at the Australian Cross Country Championships, with Scarlett also repping the state in AFL and the 1500m and 800m.
And the Bongers family brought back a swag of medals from the Australian Tetrathlon and Laser Run Championships in Geelong.
Banjup’s Robert Sheehy scooped the pool at the Amalgamated Melville Homing Pigeon Club’s end-of-season awards; he was named overall club champion, and received trophies for best club performance, for consistency, and for best young bird.
And Creative Soul Sessions’ Sandy De Luca was announced as a finalist in the globe-wide Women Changing the World Awards, hosted by Fergie, Duchess of York.
It wasn’t all wins in 2024 however. The community suffered through some terrible losses as well, farewelling young Seville Grove legend Levi Tracy who sadly lost his third epic battle with cancer, and beloved local music man, Adrian Loos, who supplied the soundtrack to people’s lives for forty years from Abbotts Music Centre.
There were some uphill battles this year too: The hills community took on multinational water bottlers in an effort to stop them extracting precious groundwater for profit; the City of Armadale braced itself as the polyphagous shothole borer was detected within its bounds for the first time, and locals expressed outrage as developers used a wetland as a car park, and Metronet ‘poleaxed’ trees from ecologically-sensitive bushland in Wungong.
There are big things in store for 2025, the most obvious being the completion of the Armadale station and the Byford Rail Extension. But this year, Armadale should also get a Uni Study Hub, and work will hopefully start on the new Central Park. The long-promised primary school in Sienna Wood will start to materialise this year, as will the new ‘town centre’.
We can’t wait to be there with you through it all.
