By Andy Young
The City of Sydney Council has extended the exhibition period for the development application to demolish the Alexandria Hotel by a week and campaigners are urging people to try and save the pub.
The hotel, which is on the corner of Henderson Road and Garden Street in Alexandria has been earmarked for demolition, to be replaced by four-storey residential and commercial building. The development application was due to close last week, but following a surge in support for the pub, that deadline has been extended to this Friday, 24 July.
Alex Robinson, who lives in the area, heard about the demolition plans and decided to take action. He set up a Facebook page to garner support for the pub and since then more people and groups have jumped on board.
Robinson told TheShout: "So many people have got behind it; there's not been one person who hasn't supported what we're trying to do."
NSW state MP Ron Hoenig is also supporting the fight to save the pub. In a letter to local residents he urged people to take action. He wrote: "We are losing many of the buildings and spaces that give character to our community because the current planning framework promotes big business developments over functional amenity or protection of local heritage sites like the Alexandria Hotel."
The hotel is not heritage listed and Robinson added: "There seems to have been some real problems with the heritage around Alexandria. One of the arguments being put forward is that there's no reason to keep anything like the Alex anymore because everything else that was like it has gone. But that really doesn't make sense."
There are six other hotels in the area which do have a heritage listing and campaigners are seeking to redress the Alexandria Hotel's missing heritage. A request has gone in to council to grant an interim heritage order with a definitive heritage listing being sought at either a local or state level.
Robinson admitted that one of the issues the campaign has is a lack of experience in some of the technical things that can be done to help stop development work and save the pub.
"It's hard to find people who can guide us and give us the right advice on how to save the pub," he said.
Anyone wishing to help save the Alexandria Hotel, offer advice or who has experience in saving pubs can contact the Save the Alexandria Hotel campaign through its website or the Save the Alex Facebook page.