Morley theme park proposal rejected by City of Bayswater

A PROPOSED theme park in Morley has been knocked back due to limited public open space availability and cost.

At a City of Bayswater council meeting this week, Dianella resident Neville Friedman applied for a seven-month peppercorn lease to set up a children’s entertainment park at Rudloc Reserve.

The park proposal included a three-lane waterslide, bouncy castle, “superhero versus villains” water gun battle zone, zorba balls, climbing wall and a mobile food vehicle.

Mr Friedman owns Mean Machines – a restaurant, shop and classic car and motorcycle showroom – on Rudloc Road in Morley, and unsuccessfully tried to have the road changed to Mean Street in August.

According to a City officer report, the children’s entertainment would be a “welcome new component to the Morley activity centre and would create some activation of the Rudloc Road area to support the new restaurants”.

However, there were concerns about the potential impact on the surrounding residential area, limited public open space available in the suburb and cost to the City; $663,505 for toilets, parking bays and shade sails.

The entertainment park proposed would take up 40 per cent of reserve, another 20 per cent for parking, with the remaining 40 per cent for public open space.

Mr Friedman said the park was not “substantially” used.

“It would be enormously popular, there is nothing like this in the area,” he said.

“I think it would have invigorated the whole area on weekends.”

Mr Friedman previously told the Reporter he envisaged Rudloc Road in Morley as the “cappuccino strip of the north”.