Fight to keep Hobart’s historic charm

HOBART is a beautiful, historical, maritime city, unique among the cities of Australia. Fragrance group’s proposed corporate towers are totally inappropriate for our small city, both in style and scale. Towers of concrete and glass would be in keeping in shiny, new cities like Singapore and Shanghai, but not for Hobart. Iconic European cities like Rome, Paris and Amsterdam have preserved their historic centres and that’s what both tourists and residents love about these places.

Similarly, tourists are flocking to Hobart because it is different to other Australian cities and it is beautiful, nestled between Mount Wellington and the River Derwent. I often meet tourists and I hear time and again how they are enchanted by our city and Battery Point because of the grand historic sandstone buildings and the quaint cottages, all of a human scale. Salamanca Place, a great tourist drawcard, would have been demolished if it hadn’t been for a forward thinking premier, Bill Neilson. Likewise, large areas of Battery Point would not be here today if it had not been for determined residents protecting that which is unique. Now we are reaping the benefits of these progressive people in terms of a vibrant growing tourist industry.

Why build these huge skyscrapers, casting shadows, creating wind tunnels and destroying the aesthetic quality of our city?

The Fragrance Group is a Singaporean company so the profit and money will flow out of Hobart to Asia. While the construction of these monoliths will create jobs short term, the long-term money will be made by tours booked and paid for overseas; that’s if tourists still want to come here after the construction of the towers. Fragrance group are interested in making money. There is nothing wrong with that, but not at Hobart’s expense. Do we really want to kill the goose which laid the golden egg?