By Jeremy Sollars
The Leslie Centenary Memorial Gates has moved a step closer to State Heritage listing, the Free Times can reveal.
Members of the public who made submissions to the Queensland Department of Environment and Heritage Protection (EHP) have received formal advice from the department that it has recommended the controversial Gates be included as part of the overall State Heritage listing for Leslie Park.
As reported previously in the Free Times, the Leslie Centenary Memorial Gates in Leslie Park has been at the centre of a tug-of-war between heritage supporters and the Glengallan Homestead Trust.
The Trust has sought the return of the gates to the Homestead grounds – where it was originally part of the entrance to Glengallan – in time for the Homestead’s 150th anniversary celebrations in September.
But many in the community have voiced their support for the gates to remain in Leslie Park and be State Heritage-listed, adamant that it’s part of the park’s and the city’s history.
The four sandstone pillars and the iron gates – which stand in the south-west corner of Leslie Park opposite the Warwick Courthouse – were gifted to the Warwick council in 1940 by the then owner of Glengallan Homestead, Oswald Slade, to mark the centenary of the Leslie brothers settling in the Warwick district.
When they were installed in Leslie Park, the gates were mounted with commemorative insets recognising the Leslie Brothers, which remain in place today.
A Warwick resident submitted an application earlier this year to EHP requesting that the Leslie Centenary Memorial Gates be given formal heritage protection in the park.
What happens now is that the EHP heritage listing recommendation will go to the independent Queensland Heritage Council which will have the final say on State Heritage listing of the gate.
Advice to local submitters in favour of the listing states that the Queensland Heritage Council is expected to consider the matter at its meeting in Brisbane on Friday 28 July but has 60 business days to make a final decision.
The Queensland Heritage Council will hear oral representations from interested parties at the 28 July meeting.
Southern Downs councillors had been expected to make a decision about shifting the gate back to Glengallan Homestead at their meeting on Wednesday 26 April.
But council officers are understood to have received advice shortly before that meeting that a local community member had lodged an application to have the gates State Heritage-listed, forcing the councillors to defer their decision.
In a statement released to the Free Times in April, the Department of Environment and Heritage Protection confirmed it had received an application “from a member of the community to enter the Leslie Park Memorial Gates in the Queensland heritage register”.
“The department will assess the application and make a recommendation to the Queensland Heritage Council, an independent body who decides which places are entered in the Queensland heritage register,” the statement said.
“The Queensland Heritage Council is likely to consider the application at their July or August 2017 meeting.
“The Leslie Gates stand within the Queensland Heritage Register boundary for the Warwick War Memorial and Gates, which encompasses all of Leslie Park.
“There is no information in the current heritage register entry about the Leslie Gates.
“Because these gates are contained within the heritage boundary, some form of development approval would still be required for any proposed relocation, with or without the current application.”
In March of this year, Glengallan Homestead Trust chair Donna Fraser announced that a Toowoomba businessman with family links to Glengallan, Warwick and Allora had donated $10,000 to Glengallan’s 150th anniversary projects, including return of the Glengallan Gates.
The Glengallan Homestead Trust has previously indicated that if the proposed relocation proceeds, they would cover all costs associated with the relocation of the gates to the Glengallan Homestead and the reinstatement of the Leslie Park memorial site, along with interpretive signage.
Some have proposed that a replica of the gates could be installed in Leslie Park if the originals go back to Glengallan.
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