City Of Blacktown
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Blacktown City Council is a
local government area A local government area (LGA) is an administrative division of a country that a local government is responsible for. The size of an LGA varies by country but it is generally a subdivision of a State (administrative division), state, province, divi ...
in
Western Sydney Western may refer to: Places *Western, Nebraska, a village in the US *Western, New York, a town in the US *Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western world, countries that id ...
, situated on the
Cumberland Plain The Cumberland Plain, an IBRA biogeographic region, is a relatively flat region lying to the west of Sydney CBD in New South Wales, Australia. Cumberland Basin is the preferred physiographic and geological term for the low-lying plain of the ...
, approximately west of the
Sydney central business district The Sydney central business district (CBD) is the historical and main Central business district, commercial centre of Sydney. The CBD is Sydney's city centre, or Sydney City, and the two terms are used interchangeably. Colloquially, the CBD or c ...
, in the state of
New South Wales ) , nickname = , image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , es ...
, Australia. Established in 1906 as the Blacktown Shire and becoming the Municipality of Blacktown in 1961 before gaining city status in 1979, the City occupies an area of and has a population of 366,534, making it the second most populous local government area in Sydney. The
Mayor In many countries, a mayor is the highest-ranking official in a municipal government such as that of a city or a town. Worldwide, there is a wide variance in local laws and customs regarding the powers and responsibilities of a mayor as well a ...
of the Blacktown City Council is Cr. Tony Bleasdale, OAM, a member of the
Australian Labor Party The Australian Labor Party (ALP), also simply known as Labor, is the major centre-left political party in Australia, one of two major parties in Australian politics, along with the centre-right Liberal Party of Australia. The party forms the f ...
, who was elected on 9 October 2019 following the resignation of Stephen Bali, MP.


Suburbs and localities of the City of Blacktown

These are the suburbs and localities in the local government area:


History

The first road from Prospect to
Richmond Richmond most often refers to: * Richmond, Virginia, the capital of Virginia, United States * Richmond, London, a part of London * Richmond, North Yorkshire, a town in England * Richmond, British Columbia, a city in Canada * Richmond, California, ...
became known as the "Black Town Road" and in 1860 the Railway Department gave the name of "Black Town Road Station" to the railway station at the junction of the railway and the Black Town Road, with the name shortening to "Blacktown" by 1862. The Blacktown area was first incorporated on 6 March 1906 as the "Shire of Blacktown" alongside 132 other new shires across the state as a result of the passing of the ''Local Government (Shires) Act, 1905''. The first five-member temporary council was appointed on 15 May 1906 and first met on 20 June in the Rooty Hill School of Arts. The Blacktown Shire became the "Municipality of Blacktown" on 17 June 1961 and was granted city status on 9 March 1979, becoming the "City of Blacktown".


Blacktown Council Chambers and Civic Centre

In 1937 Blacktown council discussed the need for new Council Chambers, with the present arrangements seen as inadequate and unable to accommodate growing staff needs. In August 1938, the council discussed two schemes from architect Leslie J. Buckland for the new council chambers, with the scheme that created a new wing facing Flushcombe Road while retaining the old council chambers for other uses being the most favoured. Designed in the modernist Inter-war Functionalist style by Buckland and constructed by J. H. Abbey of Epping at a cost of £7,000, the Council Chambers were officially opened on 29 July 1939 by the Minister for Public Works and Local Government,
Eric Spooner Eric Sydney Spooner (2 March 1891 – 3 June 1952) was an Australian politician. Early life Spooner was born in the Sydney suburb of Waterloo and educated at Christ Church St Laurence School. At 14 he became a telegraph messenger and studie ...
. By the early 1960s, Blacktown Council resolved to develop a new council seat and 'civic centre' and an International style design by Parramatta architects, Leslie J. Buckland & Druce (George Harley, project architect), for a multi-storey administration building, a performance hall, library and basement parking was accepted at a cost of £500,000. Built of concrete and brick, with decorative facade panels and glass curtain walling, the Civic Centre was constructed by S. J. Wood & Co Lty Ltd, with A. S. Nicholson as the consulting engineer. The foundation stone for the Civic Centre was laid by Premier of NSW, Bob Heffron, on 17 June 1961, on the same occasion marking the change of Blacktown from a Shire to a Municipality. The Civic Centre was officially opened on 25 October 1965 by the Minister for Local Government and Highways,
Pat Morton Philip Henry (Pat) Morton (28 October 191018 January 1999) was an Australian businessman and politician. Born in Lismore in Northern New South Wales to a prominent political family and educated at Lismore High School, Morton left school at f ...
, with the Mayor,
Alfred Ashley-Brown Alfred Ashley-Brown (6 November 1907 – 5 March 1993) was an Australian politician. Born in Sydney, he was a company director, and served in the military 1942–45, achieving the rank of Major. A member of Blacktown City Council, he was the may ...
, declaring "It is my sincere wish we will as a council cherish the heritage which brings us here tonight - that this chamber will be a place wherein good government within our sphere of responsibility will be made manifest, and that all decisions which are made shall be for the good of the people of the Municipality of Blacktown". On 10 April 1967, the old 1939 Council Chambers were transformed into the first Blacktown Municipal Library, which was later demolished and became the Max Webber Library from 1980. In 1984, with the Civic Centre being overcrowded and suffering from lack of space, the Council approved significant extensions to the Civic Centre at a cost of $2,781,550 that added 2,000 square metres of office floor space and enabled the consolidation of all Council departments in a single location. The extensions were constructed by McNamara Constructions Pty Limited.


Blacktown City Libraries

In 1947, Blacktown Shire Council formally adopted the , which had been passed to encourage (including financial subsidies) local governments to establish free public libraries, but no further action was taken due to a lack of finance. However it was not until the 1960s, with the significant growth in the area's population, the Council identified a clear need for a library service, and when the Civic Centre opened in 1965, Council appointed the first Chief Librarian in 1966 and resolved to establish the first library in the old 1939 Council Chambers building on the opposite side of Flushcombe Road. The first Blacktown Municipal Library was officially opened on 10 April 1967. The Blacktown City Libraries service expanded with the opening of Library Branches at Lalor Park (1968), Mount Druitt (1977) and Riverstone (1978). In 1979, Blacktown council commissioned a new Blacktown branch library, with the old library and 1939 Council Chambers building demolished and replaced by a new building designed by architects Allen Jack & Cottier, and constructed by R. W. Tims (Builders) Pty Ltd. On 31 October 1979, Council resolved to name this new library after the Town Clerk of Blacktown, Max Webber, and the ''Max Webber Library'' was officially opened by the Deputy Premier
Jack Ferguson Laurie John Ferguson (4 September 1924 – 17 September 2002) was an Australian politician and member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly for the Australian Labor Party (New South Wales Branch). He served in Neville Wran's state gove ...
on 8 March 1980. A new branch library in Stanhope Gardens was officially opened on 7 August 2009, and was also named after a former Town Clerk as the ''Dennis Johnson Branch Library''.


Demographics

At the , there were people resident in the Blacktown local government area, of these 49.7 per cent were male and 50.3 per cent were female.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people Indigenous Australians or Australian First Nations are people with familial heritage from, and membership in, the ethnic groups that lived in Australia before British colonisation. They consist of two distinct groups: the Aboriginal peoples ...
made up 2.8 per cent of the population, roughly equal to the NSW and Australian averages of 2.9 and 2.8 per cent respectively. The
median In statistics and probability theory, the median is the value separating the higher half from the lower half of a data sample, a population, or a probability distribution. For a data set, it may be thought of as "the middle" value. The basic fe ...
age of people in the City of Blacktown was 33 years, which was significantly lower than the national median of 38 years. Children aged 0 – 14 years made up 22.8 per cent of the population and people aged 65 years and over made up 9.0-10.3 per cent of the population. Of people in the area aged 15 years and over, 52.3 per cent were married and 9.9 per cent were either divorced or separated. Population growth in the City of Blacktown between the and the was 6.47 per cent; and in the subsequent five years to the , population growth was 10.82 per cent. At the 2016 census, the population in the local government area increased by 11.91 per cent. When compared with total population growth of Australia for the same period, being 8.8 per cent, population growth in Blacktown local government area was in excess of 35% more than the national average. The median weekly income for residents within the City of Blacktown was generally on par with the national average. At the 2016 census, the proportion of residents in the Blacktown local government area who stated their
ancestry An ancestor, also known as a forefather, fore-elder or a forebear, is a parent or (recursively) the parent of an antecedent (i.e., a grandparent, great-grandparent, great-great-grandparent and so forth). ''Ancestor'' is "any person from whom ...
as
Filipino Filipino may refer to: * Something from or related to the Philippines ** Filipino language, standardized variety of 'Tagalog', the national language and one of the official languages of the Philippines. ** Filipinos, people who are citizens of th ...
, was in excess of six times the national average. The proportion of residents who stated a
religious Religion is usually defined as a social system, social-cultural system of designated religious behaviour, behaviors and practices, morality, morals, beliefs, worldviews, religious text, texts, sacred site, sanctified places, prophecy, prophecie ...
affiliation with
Hinduism Hinduism () is an Indian religion or '' dharma'', a religious and universal order or way of life by which followers abide. As a religion, it is the world's third-largest, with over 1.2–1.35 billion followers, or 15–16% of the global p ...
was in excess of three times the national average; the proportion of
Catholics The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
was 33 per cent above the national average; and the proportion of residents with no religion about half the national average. Meanwhile, as at the census date, the area was linguistically diverse, with Tagalog,
Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been de ...
, Punjabi, or
Filipino Filipino may refer to: * Something from or related to the Philippines ** Filipino language, standardized variety of 'Tagalog', the national language and one of the official languages of the Philippines. ** Filipinos, people who are citizens of th ...
languages spoken in households, and ranged from five times to eight times the national averages. Pacific Island languages such as Samoan and Tongan were also noticeable in the area.


Council


Current composition and election method

Blacktown City Council is composed of fifteen
Councillor A councillor is an elected representative for a local government council in some countries. Canada Due to the control that the provinces have over their municipal governments, terms that councillors serve vary from province to province. Unl ...
s elected proportionally as five separate wards, each electing three Councillors. All Councillors are elected for a fixed four-year term of office. The Mayor is elected by the Councillors at the first meeting of the Council and since 2016 has served a two-year term. The Mayor from 2014 to 2019, Stephen Bali was required to stand down from Council as a Mayor and Councillor by October 2019, due to the
Local Government Amendment (Members of Parliament) Act, 2012
' which requires state members of parliament to relinquish local government offices no more than two years after their election. With Bali's resignation on 9 October 2019, Cr Tony Bleasdale was elected Mayor. The most recent election was held on 4 December 2021, and the makeup of the council is as follows: The current Council, elected in 2021, in order of election by ward, is:


Office-holders


Shire Presidents and Mayors


Shire/Town Clerks and General Managers


Coat of arms

After becoming a city in 1979, the Council resolved to investigate and if possible obtain a coat of arms, making a request to the Chester Herald of Arms,
Hubert Chesshyre David Hubert Boothby Chesshyre (22 June 1940 – 24 December 2020) was a British officer of arms. Chesshyre served for more than forty years as an officer of arms in ordinary to Queen Elizabeth II and as a member of Her Majesty's Household ...
. With the design completed by March 1981, Council resolved to adopt the Coat of Arms at its meeting on 1 April 1981.


Heritage listings

The City of Blacktown has a number of heritage-listed sites, including those on the
New South Wales State Heritage Register The New South Wales State Heritage Register, also known as NSW State Heritage Register, is a heritage list of places in the state of New South Wales, Australia, that are protected by New South Wales legislation, generally covered by the Heritag ...
: * Prospect, Upper Canal System * Prospect, Great Western Highway:
Veteran Hall Remains The Veteran Hall Remains are the heritage-listed archaeological remains of the former Veteran Hall house at Great Western Highway, Prospect, City of Blacktown, New South Wales, Australia. Veteran Hall was built in 1821 by William Lawson. The p ...
* Prospect, Ponds Road: St Bartholomew's Anglican Church and Cemetery * Prospect, Reservoir Road:
Former Great Western Road Alignment, Prospect Former Great Western Road Alignment, Prospect is a heritage-listed stretch of road, now divided into four separately-named sections of road and partially divided by the M4 Western Motorway at, Prospect, New South Wales, Prospect, City of Black ...
* Prospect, Reservoir Road:
Prospect Reservoir The Prospect Reservoir is a heritage-listed potable water supply and storage reservoir created by the Prospect Dam, across the Prospect Creek located in the Western Sydney suburb of Prospect, in New South Wales, Australia. The eastern boun ...
* Prospect, East of Reservoir: Prospect Reservoir Valve House * Prospect, 385 Reservoir Road:
Royal Cricketers Arms Inn Royal Cricketers Arms Inn is a heritage-listed Australian pub at 385 Reservoir Road, Prospect, New South Wales, Prospect, City of Blacktown, New South Wales, Australia. It was designed by James Manning and built by James Manning. It is also kno ...
* Prospect, 23 Tarlington Place: Prospect Post Office


Sister cities

Blacktown City Council has
sister city A sister city or a twin town relationship is a form of legal or social agreement between two geographically and politically distinct localities for the purpose of promoting cultural and commercial ties. While there are early examples of inter ...
relations with the following cities: *
Porirua Porirua, ( mi, Pari-ā-Rua) a city in the Wellington Region of the North Island of New Zealand, is one of the four cities that constitute the Wellington metropolitan area. The name 'Porirua' is a corruption of 'Pari-rua', meaning "the tide swee ...
,
Wellington Region Greater Wellington, also known as the Wellington Region (Māori: ''Te Upoko o te Ika''), is a non-unitary region of New Zealand that occupies the southernmost part of the North Island. The region covers an area of , and has a population of T ...
,
North Island The North Island, also officially named Te Ika-a-Māui, is one of the two main islands of New Zealand, separated from the larger but much less populous South Island by the Cook Strait. The island's area is , making it the world's 14th-largest ...
,
New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...
, since 1984 * Suseong-gu,
Daegu Daegu (, , literally 'large hill', 대구광역시), formerly spelled Taegu and officially known as the Daegu Metropolitan City, is a city in South Korea. It is the third-largest urban agglomeration in South Korea after Seoul and Busan; it is ...
,
South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...
, since 1994 *
Liaocheng Liaocheng (), is a prefecture-level city in western Shandong province, China. It borders the provincial capital of Jinan to the southeast, Dezhou to the northeast, Tai'an to the south, and the provinces of Hebei and Henan to the west. The Grand ...
,
Shandong Shandong ( , ; ; alternately romanized as Shantung) is a coastal province of the People's Republic of China and is part of the East China region. Shandong has played a major role in Chinese history since the beginning of Chinese civilizati ...
,
China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
, since 2003 *
Liverpool Plains The Liverpool Plains are an extensive agricultural area covering about of the north-western slopes of New South Wales in Australia. These plains are a region of prime agricultural land bounded to the east by the Great Dividing Range, to the s ...
,
New South Wales ) , nickname = , image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , es ...
,
Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
, since 2005


References


External links


City of Blacktown's website
{{Local Government Areas of New South Wales
Blacktown Blacktown is a suburb in the City of Blacktown, in Greater Western Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Blacktown is located west of the Sydney central business district. It is one of the most multicultural places within Grea ...
1906 establishments in Australia
Blacktown Blacktown is a suburb in the City of Blacktown, in Greater Western Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Blacktown is located west of the Sydney central business district. It is one of the most multicultural places within Grea ...
Shire Presidents and Mayors of Blacktown *