Casey is a suburb in Canberra, Australia, approximately 4 km from the

Gungahlin Town Centre Gungahlin is a suburb in the Canberra, Australia district with the same name; Gungahlin. The postcode is 2912. Gungahlin is the name for the entire district, and also the town centre, but it is also the name of the suburb which Gungahlin Town ...

and about 13 km from the centre of Canberra. The suburb is named after

Richard Casey, Baron Casey Richard Gavin Gardiner Casey, Baron Casey, (29 August 1890 – 17 June 1976) was an Australian statesman who served as the 16th Governor-General of Australia, in office from 1965 to 1969. He was also a distinguished army officer, long-serving ...

an Australian politician, diplomat and later the 16th Governor-General of Australia. It is bound by Horse Park Drive and Clarrie Hermes Drive. Casey is located in north-west

Gungahlin The District of Gungahlin () is one of the original eighteen districts of the Australian Capital Territory used in land administration. The Gungahlin Region is one of fastest growing regions within Australia. The district is subdivided into div ...

, adjacent to the suburbs of Nicholls and

Ngunnawal The Ngunnawal people, also spelt Ngunawal, are an Aboriginal people of southern New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory in Australia. Language Ngunnawal and Gundungurra are Australian Aboriginal languages from the Pama-Nyungan ...

, and the future suburbs of Kinlyside,

Taylor Taylor, Taylors or Taylor's may refer to: People * Taylor (surname) ** List of people with surname Taylor * Taylor (given name), including Tayla and Taylah * Taylor sept, a branch of Scottish clan Cameron * Justice Taylor (disambiguation) Pl ...

and Moncrieff. The suburb draws its place names from notable Australian diplomats, public servants and administrators. Former Lieutenant-Governor of South Australia

Walter Crocker Sir Walter Russell Crocker (25 March 190214 November 2002) was an Australian diplomat, writer and war veteran. Life and career Crocker was born in Broken Hill, New South Wales, the eldest son of Robert Crocker and Alma Bray. He served in World ...

and Sir John Overall, the former head of the

National Capital Development Commission The National Capital Authority (NCA) is a statutory authority of the Australian Government that was established to manage the Commonwealth's interest in the planning and development of Canberra as the capital city of Australia. Timeline of the ...

are honoured by place names in Casey.

History

Until 1990, Casey was part of the former 'Gold Creek' a rural property with the

Gold Creek Homestead Gold Creek Homestead is a 140-year-old stone and brick building located off Gungahlin Drive in Ngunnawal a north-western suburb of Canberra, Australia. It is adjacent to the Grove Ngunnawal retirement village currently being developed by Lend L ...

at its centre. The relative flat and even topography of portions of the suburb of Casey was ideal for various pursuits including horse racing, and was the site of a practice track for racing horses. A stand of trees parallel to Horse Park Drive which predates the establishment of the village (now the suburb) of Hall marks the original alignment of the Queanbeyan-Yass Road.

Development

Construction work on road and other infrastructure for Casey commenced in September 2008. In December 2009, Overall Avenue, the connector road for Casey Stage 1, opened to traffic between Clarrie Hermes Drive and Horsepark Drive. During this period stormwater infrastructure including a sediment pond was also completed (pictured below right). Settlement of the suburb began in 2010 and it had an estimated population of 2,881 on 30 June 2013. Casey will eventually occupy an area approximately 192 ha in size and accommodate 1,940 dwellings, including about 275 medium density units in the commercial centres. A Group (Shopping) Centre will be constructed in the south-east corner of the suburb near the corner of Horse Park and Clarrie Hermes Drives. A second and minor commercial centre planned for Casey will be built at the northern end of the suburb nearest the future suburb of Taylor. The Group Centre is expected to incorporate a retail core clustered around a 'central green-node' similar to Green Square in Kingston. To improve accessibility of the Group Centre, Clarrie Hermes Drive has been extended through to the Barton Highway at its westerly end.

Geology

The landscape slopes to the south east, with a line of hills forming a ridge on the north west side making a backdrop. The low point is 622 metres at the roundabout joining Gungahlin Drive, Horse Park Drive and Clarrie Hermes drive. The highest point is 726 metres in the north west corner. Casey is underlaid by rocks from the Silurian period. Along the hill tops the rock is from the Hawkins Volcanics, with mostly

dacite Dacite () is a volcanic rock formed by rapid solidification of lava that is high in silica and low in alkali metal oxides. It has a fine-grained (aphanitic) to porphyritic texture and is intermediate in composition between andesite and rhyolite ...

in the south, and

andesite Andesite () is a volcanic rock of intermediate composition. In a general sense, it is the intermediate type between silica-poor basalt and silica-rich rhyolite. It is fine-grained (aphanitic) to porphyritic in texture, and is composed predo ...

in the north. The north east of the suburb has dacite from the Canberra Formation. The south east has a green grey porphyry with a dacite like composition, and visible white

feldspar Feldspars are a group of rock-forming aluminium tectosilicate minerals, also containing other cations such as sodium, calcium, potassium, or barium. The most common members of the feldspar group are the ''plagioclase'' (sodium-calcium) felds ...

crystals.Henderson G A M and Matveev G, Geology of Canberra, Queanbeyan and Environs 1:50000 1980.

References

{{Gungahlin Suburbs