By Emma Young
Ambitious plans to transform the eastern foreshore gateway to Perth city have reached new milestones with testing of an unprecedented bridge light show and work commencing on new sporting facilities.
Victoria Park’s McCallum Park connects the South Perth foreshore to the Causeway Bridge and Crown Perth, and gives airport arrivals their first glimpse of the city and Swan River together. But it has lagged its South Perth counterparts with aged facilities and outdated hard river walls.
Transformation began in 2018 with the river’s edges progressively softened to vegetated beaches, and from December 22 that foreshore will better connect to the city via the new Boorloo Bridge, a pedestrian and cyclist bridge 90 metres downstream of the existing Causeway.
Now construction is complete on the bridge, two six-metre-wide cable-stayed bridges with boomerang and digging stick pylons, and a six-metre-wide segregated path connecting Victoria Park, Heirisson Island and East Perth’s Point Fraser.
And testing is now under way of its state-of-the-art lighting unlike anything yet seen in Perth – as shown in a sneak-peek video captured by a reader living in Burswood – to be turned on proper at a free family twilight event on December 22 with a firework display and the first bridge crossings.
The bridge will no doubt be embraced by walkers and riders used to the bumpy, wafer-thin side paths of the Causeway.
The new Boorloo Bridge.Credit: Building for Tomorrow
Work has also commenced on the $4.8 million skate park, BMX pump tracks and revamped basketball courts of McCallum Park representing the second stage of the master plan, incorporating $2.5 million federal funding and almost $1 million state funding.
Skate facilities will include a bowl and skate-able plaza, alongside the BMX pump track, a Town of Victoria Park-funded junior scooter track, community areas with built-in barbecues, and landscaping. The revitalised basketball courts will feature large-scale artworks by local artists.
Town Mayor Karen Vernon said the addition of competition-ready skate and scooter facilities, all-ages and community gathering spaces would see McCallum Park rejoin the list of premier inner-city recreation destinations.
An artist’s impression of the McCallum Park Active Area.
Work on the recreational facilities is due for completion by mid-2025.
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