National Trust tackles Richmond on grandstand demolitionJake Niall
The Age
April 20, 2021 — 8.09pmThe National Trust has called for a review of Richmond’s plan to demolish the Jack Dyer Stand at Punt Road Oval for a major redevelopment on the grounds that the stand is of cultural and historic significance to Victoria.
The National Trust also will request that the decision of the club to level the stand - part of a $60 million redevelopment of Richmond’s Punt Rd base - be reviewed by Heritage Victoria and potentially heritage-listed - a finding that would create obstacles for Richmond’s planned redevelopment.
The National Trust (Victoria)’s assessment of Punt Road Oval has found that the Jack Dyer Stand is of “architectural, historic and social significance to Victorians” and said that the stand could be saved, but even if the stand couldn’t be kept, the heritage body wants the Tigers to preserve “the cultural heritage” of the stand, which was opened on June 16, 1914, when the Tigers hosted South Melbourne.
Richmond say the redevelopment - for which it has pledges of $30 million from state and federal governments - is crucial to the Tigers remaining at Punt Road and involves important community work for their Indigenous, multicultural programs and women’s football.
The National Trust Victoria’s chief executive Simon Ambrose said: “We think there’s a strong case for the heritage value and historic value of the Jack Dyer stand to be taken into consideration.” He added that the stand’s removal “would be a loss to the community and to Victoria’s heritage”.
Ambrose said the issue of the stand’s removal would be raised with Heritage Victoria. “We’ll ask Heritage Victoria to take due consideration of the impact of the Jack Dyer Stand (being removed).”
“I think it needs to be determined if it has value to be heritage listed.
“I’m saying it should be considered to be saved ... It has heritage value, it also has social heritage value. It’s an important space.”
Ambrose said the trust - which outlined its concern about the redevelopment in its quarterly publication - wanted Heritage Victoria “to take this seriously”.
Richmond, however, argued that the retention of the Richmond Football Club at the club’s Punt Road Oval base was of far greater historical significance than the removal of the stand.
“It needs to be removed to allow for the development of facilities that will ensure Richmond remains in Richmond long into the future,” a club spokesman said.
The redevelopment involves a reconfiguring of the oval to be the same size as the MCG, which would enable women’s football to be played there permanently and for preparation of all teams.
The redevelopment also will see a revamp of facilities for women’s football, for the club’s Indigenous Transition School and Korin Gamadji Institute (Indigenous learning centre) and for the Bachar Houli Foundation.
Heritage Victoria, should it deem the Jack Dyer Stand to be worthy of listing, would recommend this to the Heritage Council, which would complete that listing. Once listed, Richmond would need planning approval to go ahead and demolish the stand, as planned - a process that could lead to VCAT.
Ambrose said the National Trust was “not against development”, but that the body was against “not recognising” the social and cultural heritage of a structure such as the stand. He said famous stands at renowned grounds such as Lords and the SCG had been preserved.
The stand, when opened in 1914, was not named after Dyer, arguably the club ’s most revered figure over its history, until 1996.
https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/national-trust-tackles-richmond-tigers-on-grandstand-demolition-20210420-p57kvs.html
