A Street(car) Named Desire … And Terrazzo, and Pulford, And Scolaro

The very annoying High Road Upgrade goes on and on.

When it’s complete it will produce two new street frontages, and the folk whose homes front on them need proper, new street addresses for the delivery of cartons of wine, Amazon stuff and the occasional Australia Post deliveries.

There’s going to be New Local Road 1 and New Local Road 2. Have a look here.

But what to call them, assuming those affected aren’t entirely enamoured with New Local Road 1 and New Local Road 2?

For a start, not all streets are borne equal. Some are Roads and Lanes. Others are Closes. But most are your garden variety Streets.

You won’t be surprised to learn there is a whole formal Landgate street naming exercise you have to go through, which includes significant input from the City of Fremantle, before a name is formally adopted.

Apart from anything else, you can’t have a name that’s been used nearby. And you can’t use the name of a living person. And – you’ll like this – you have to consider how easy it is to say the name. On that basis, Gugeri Street in Claremont ought to be cancelled as no-one seems to know how to say it properly! But we digress.

Here’s some new Freo street names that have been adopted over the past few years, the eponymous Richard Lane being the most recent.

There’s also a set format for identifying names from various categories. And you need a back up name in case Landgate’s Geographic Names Committee doesn’t like your first choice.

Well, City of Freo officers hunted through the categories, did a survey of possible names with local residents as to those they preferred, including how easy to say they are, before reporting to Council.

Here’s the first batch from the report.

And here’s the rest –

So much history to pore through, so many great options to choose from.

Finally, Council – reflecting the local community’s preferences – resolved to recommend to Landgate’s naming Committee that –

* Local Road 1 be named Terrazzo Close
* Local Road 2 be named Pulford Close
* Scolaro Close be the back up name for each.

As a PS to this story, as there weren’t any Indigenous names on the list, Council has resolved to develop a reserve list of Indigenous names for future street naming purposes.

* This article was written by Michael Barker