Smoke! Mirrors! Etc.
Are you getting a little over, maybe even a little suspicious, of all these announcements for Wavegardens in Australia?
Already, we’re apparently going to get man-made waves in Melbourne, Sydney, and revealed today, Perth, or if we’re going to be specific, the suburb of Alfred’s Cove, midway between Perth and Fremantle.
One year ago, Wave Park Group CEO Andrew Ross told BeachGrit he was aiming for ten pools in a decade. Australia’s vast continent sprinkled with the fairy dust of wavepools. What could be finer?
From the PR spin: “Wave Park Group is thrilled to announce the location of WA’s first Wavegarden, to be located at Tompkins Park in the City of Melville. With river frontage and lush green surroundings, the A$25 million URBNSURF Perth development is set to break ground in late 2017…”
Is it really set to break ground in a year?
That would presume the site had been acquired, that all development approvals had gone through, the poor old bastards whose lives revolve around the Melville Bowling Club (lawn bowls, not ten-pin) had been given somewhere else to shuffle their balls.
How close is Wave Park Group?
The local council hasn’t even considered let alone endorsed the project.
Does a press release that trumpets 300 jobs and a $250 million injection into the economy (“over the life of the project”) seem a little presumptuous to you?
Smoke? Mirrors? Right now, yeah it is.
And, if you were the local council, and if you had even an ounce of research behind you, wouldn’t you wait to at least see commercial applications of the WSL/Slater tank before you threw prime riverfront land away?
Welcome to URBNSURF Perth! from URBNSURF on Vimeo.
