Who wants to save Helensburgh Community Hall

Helensburgh’s old community hall looks like something from a time capsule of a disaster zone in recent drone photos.

“It's got kids' toys scattered on the floor, it looks like people just got up and walked out and the thing was barricaded,” says Gavin Little, the spokesperson for 2508 Collaborate, newly formed to stop the demolition of the community asset.

“It’s heartbreaking when you see it, because you're not seeing an empty hall, you're seeing a community space … it's quite a telling photo.”

The group of “30 to 40” residents from the 2508 postcode launched last month and has already letterboxed the district, created a logo, a website and a Facebook page. Their campaign to save the old hall comes just as Wollongong City Council looked to have wrapped up seven years of planning and hired local Sherson Architecture to design a new Community Centre and Library across the road at 53-55 Walker Street.

But 2508 Collaborate members – many of whom only learned of plans to demolish the old hall at November’s Neighbourhood Forum 1 meeting – oppose council taking a wrecking ball to the existing centre, despite its history of damp and mould.

“We don't think this thing needs to be knocked over,” Gavin said, “and the fact that they're refusing to share any information with us makes us think that maybe there's more to this story.”

Calls for independent checks

Neighbourhood Forum 1’s longtime volunteer convenor Warwick Erwin said he’s been asking council to share reports on the state of the centre – officially shuttered in December 2021 – for a decade.

“The lack of information, lack of transparency from Council is just being shown up,” Warwick said. “The hall's not at its end of life. Council have lacked maintenance, lacked the ability to repair it.

“Neighbourhood Forum 1 has been trying to get the old centre open for nearly 10 years, to get the hall repaired, and we've been on council’s back to get it fixed. I'm glad 2508 Collaborate are taking it up."

Both NF1 and the new group are calling for an independent assessment.

“Council won't let anyone go into the hall,” Warwick said. “They've refused to let us take an independent expert into the hall. I've also put in a GIPA [Government Information Public Access request] … it's been over 30 days since it went in. I've got no response, asking for all the reports about the hall.”

Warwick said a “lack of transparency” extends to the design brief for the new centre, which residents fear will be smaller than the existing hub, built in the late 1970s. “There was 5,000 in town. Now there's 10,000,” he said.

Council provides info online

Wollongong City Council has published updates online, including a list of 11 FAQs about the community centre, starting with “Why don’t you just fix the old one?”

Council says the old hall at 26 Walker St – some of which is on Crown land – was closed in late 2021 “due to significant damage from subfloor water ingress and widespread black mould”. While council found it could fix the front rooms, and these reopened in early 2025 as temporary Community Rooms for hire, the main hall’s condition was “significantly worse”.

A Council spokesperson said: “The long-term plan for the current community centre site is eventual demolition. Right now, there are no decisions about future use of the land because Council only owns part of the site.”

As the driving force behind a new centre for Helensburgh, Council lists seven engagement sessions, starting in 2019. That number will soon become eight, with council planning a face-to-face event in February, on a date to be confirmed.

“They have committed to a consultation period after the architect’s design," Gavin said. "Originally they were going straight from design to build. It's been in response to what we've done in the last four weeks. They're good changes – more engagement is positive.”

Council’s most recent engagement report says that, in October 2024, 522 people participated online and 345 face-to-face as part of a check-in on the community centre plans.

2508 Collaborate members remain critical of the process, however, claiming less than 1% of the population have given feedback on the town’s biggest public project in recent history. 

Young professionals and retirees united

The group formed after a fiery NF1 meeting in November, when residents vented historical grievances and Cr Dan Hayes advised attendees that dwelling on the past was “not constructive”. “The focus on the future is really the key,” the Ward 1 Labor councillor said.

About a month later, 2508 Collaborate launched a 12-question survey to “genuinely engage” with the community. 

“We've got over 300 responses,” Gavin said. “We're aiming to hit 500 or 600 at least. The vast majority, I would say, share our sentiments. The loss of amenity and loss of community space by tearing down the hall is unnecessary and Council's plans to date are not a like-for-like replacement.”

2508 Collaborate’s survey has revived fond memories of the old hall, which once hosted concerts, parties, playgroups, basketball, music recitals, art classes, voting, school formals, awards nights, chess, ballet and martial arts. These recollections differ to feedback given to council in 2020, when descriptions of the old centre included "poorly designed, uncomfortable, dark and clinical". 

Gavin said: “We would like to see the retention of the current facility … that has been neglected and left in a state of disrepair by Council. We would like to see that retained and restored to a workable facility.

“We're not asking for them to build something. It's already there.”

2508 Collaborate comprises parents, young professionals and retirees. “There's architects, there's council workers, there's researchers, there's communications advisers, there's all sorts of people," Gavin said. "We've got kids here, and we live here, and this is what we care about.”

There was a “wonderful irony” in the group’s first meeting place, he added. “We had it in the refurbished meeting rooms at the hall that they wish to demolish.”

'A safer space'

While the group's members support a new library centre being built, they have questions about its design, which council describes as “flexible” and featuring a hall, meeting rooms, kitchen, toilets, storeroom, library and study areas. 

“It’s going to have to be the TARDIS of buildings to achieve those things,” Gavin said.

“There's also a concern in the community about a refuge space.” 

A longtime Helensburgh resident who remembers police directing everyone to the community hall in the devastating 2001 bushfire, Gavin said the old site is a “safer space” than the new site, which is on the upside of bushland.

“Council’s mitigating engineering controls is going to be to bulldoze a section of vegetation to create a flame protection zone. But we feel that's not perhaps the same thing as a dedicated building that's in a much safer space to start with.

“You need a space to go inside, where you can get away from the heat and smoke and the embers and actually be heard. And that hall was that space.”

'Don't put a bulldozer through it'

The group wants to engage with council in a positive fashion. 

“We want a better outcome," Gavin said. "We're trying to provide them with solutions and ideas, and that's why we've done a survey as a first step.

“We're not asking them for anything extra. We're just asking them to not destroy what we have … please don't put a bulldozer through it.

“This is something the community cares about.”