Opinion Piece Newcastle Herald

Newcastle's losing its living heritage . . . and paying for it

By Peter Wickham

October 31 2025 - 6:00am

Newcastle is on the verge of losing one of its most authentic public places - and paying handsomely for it.

The City of Newcastle's Stage 2 redevelopment plan for the ocean baths threatens to erase the open-air experience that defines the site's cultural heritage. The proposal to roof and enclose the change rooms replaces salt air and sunlight with mechanical ventilation, shutting out the very qualities that make the baths part of Newcastle's identity.

But the loss extends far beyond the change rooms. The ocean baths are a social landscape - a place where people swim, chat, rest in the sun, and share a coffee or snack at the modest kiosk that once served the community for decades. It's an environment of easy camaraderie and quiet ritual, where you can arrive alone and still feel that you belong.

Sociologist Ray Oldenburg called such spaces "third places" - the informal public settings between home and work where community life thrives through casual connection.

The baths have long been Newcastle's great coastal "third place." To turn them into a managed, enclosed, and commercially oriented complex is to dismantle that living heritage - to replace the spontaneous with the controlled, and community culture with architectural theory.

The City of Newcastle is moving to adopt a heritage policy that pledges to "do as much as necessary to care for the place ... but otherwise change it as little as possible so that its heritage significance is retained".

It's an admirable statement, drawn from the Burra Charter - but it stands in direct contradiction to the council's plan for the baths. Enclosing the pavilions and installing mechanical systems is precisely the kind of over-intervention the charter warns against.

If the council is serious about leading by example in the management of its heritage assets, this is where to start - by protecting the very site that symbolises Newcastle's coastal and social identity.

It's also worth remembering that the heritage listing of the Newcastle Ocean Baths was not initiated by the council. The nomination was prepared and lodged by Friends of Newcastle Ocean Baths and the National Trust (Hunter branch). The community then made its voice unmistakably clear, with 646 public submissions lodged in support of the listing.

It was a victory for the people of Newcastle, a recognition that the baths are not just a facility but part of the city's collective identity.

While claiming to "restore" a heritage site, the council refuses to disclose the cost of this restoration. After a formal GIPA and an appeal, the Concept Design Budget Estimate prepared by APLAS Group in July 2024 remains almost completely redacted - every total blacked out under "commercial-in-confidence."

This secrecy undermines public confidence. The design involves major structural and mechanical works, including new roofs, likely air-conditioning, and enclosed facilities, all on a state-listed heritage place. The public is asked to accept this as "value for money", but without seeing the price. Transparency is not a threat to good governance; it is the test of it.

The council's design brief anticipates a new cafe capable of obtaining an alcohol licence. Yet the brief specifies it will be built only as a "cold shell," with the full fit-out to be undertaken later by a commercial tenant. Those costs are excluded from the project estimate, leaving open questions about whether the venture is financially viable or whether the public is being asked to subsidise a commercial fit-out in a heritage precinct.

This isn't an argument against renewal. The baths need care, but that care should reinforce what already works: the open-air change rooms, the coastal character, and the small-scale social life that binds the community together.

The ocean baths are not just a collection of structures; they are a civic meeting place.

When the development application is exhibited, it will be the community's one opportunity to speak.

The question is simple: will Newcastle's leaders follow their own heritage policy and protect the living heritage they are sworn to uphold - or will they spend millions to build over it?

Because once the salt, sand and sky are gone, no policy can bring them back.

Peter Wickham is the president of Friends of Newcastle Ocean Baths