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Suburbs’ expansion booms in ’70s

Margaret Price, Wanneroo TimesWanneroo Times

New council buildings, a new hospital, the Joondalup sub-regional centre, shopping centres and Pinnaroo Valley Memorial Park were on the drawing board or completed in that decade.

Wanneroo shire was growing fast.

In the year ended June 30, 1975, the Shire of Wanneroo’s population had increased 18 per cent to 46,000-plus with 2538 residential building licences issued.

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The Shire of Wanneroo accounted for 32 per cent of housing lots created in the metropolitan area as young families flocked to the new area.

Then Premier Sir Charles Court opened Wanneroo Industrial Estate (later called Wangara) in 1976, and the Joondalup Development Corporation ” set up by an act of Parliament ” was about to guide development of the new sub-regional centre.

A year later, Wanneroo Shire Council decided to go ahead with a new $2.7 million office in Joondalup ” it opened in Boas Avenue in November 1979.

Pinnaroo Valley Memorial Park, Padbury’s natural bushland cemetery, opened in 1978. Its first funeral was for pioneer Cecil Cockman, who was aged 90.

A contract to complete the new $6 million-plus Wanneroo Hospital was signed in November 1978, opening on schedule in 1980.

New shopping centres were springing up: Wanneroo’s Villanova centre had opened in 1969, Warwick Grove opened in November 1974 and Whitford City in November 1978.

(From The Story of Wanneroo compiled by Guy Daniel and Margaret Cockman, 1979).