Council’s Safer Cities: Her Ways pilot program, sought to deliver initiatives to enhance safety perceptions across Gosford, based on community insights, thoughts, and experiences.

The pilot program focused on safety at the Gosford transport interchange and surrounds. It was found that 86% of people surveyed felt unsafe in Burns Place, and 67% had a negative perception of safety.

Opportunities and interventions identified to improve safety perceptions include vegetation management, lighting and lines of sight to improve passive surveillance. It was determined that a Conservation Management Plan was required to guide the long-term maintenance, management and decision making in light of the parks’ heritage significance.

Burns Place, Gosford is a small-scaled public park situated prominently in the heart of the Gosford town centre.

Burns Place is historically significant at the local level and demonstrates the growth and development of the wider Gosford township. Having been informally left as open space since the coming of the railway in the late 1880s, it was through the conscious efforts and agitation of the community in the 1930s that the community raised funds for the establishment of 'Burns Place' (as it was then known). Burns Place is of historical significance as it evidences the civic actions and community agitation for the beautification of the town centre, to provide both a sense of arrival for tourists arriving to Gosford by train and a sense of place-making for the community.

Burns Place sits prominently within the streetscape and while the surrounding context has progressively developed and changed, the boundaries, size and configuration of Burns Place has remained substantially unchanged. Despite this, Burns Place is described as an 'evolved landscape' and provides evidence of various layers and phases of change, including most notably, the sandstone arch, garden wall and steps which are attributed to the formative phase of the development of Burns Place during the late 1930s Inter- War period, the cast concrete lamp post attributed to the 1940s period, the mature tree plantings with most attributed to the 1930s — 1960s period and the 1963 War Memorial Fountain designed by renowned mid-century sculptures Gerald and Margo Leviers.

Despite the loss of numerous early elements such as the 1930s bandstand rotunda and the introduction of numerous elements of lesser significance, Burns Place is considered a good example of an evolved landscape, with the various later phases reinforcing the role and function as a public park.

Burns Place possesses landmark qualities due to its prominent positioning in the town centre and has aesthetic values and significance as an important and identifiable pocket or urban treed canopy and open space that is distinctive in the streetscape. It has social significance and holds varying degrees of esteem for the community, serving as an important area of public open space for the passive recreation, reference point and use and enjoyment by visitors, residents, Workers and the general community. Burns Place is also of social significance as an important element to the community's sense of place.

Overall, Burns Place makes an important contribution to the historical narrative of Gosford, and has historical, aesthetic, social and representative significance at the local level.

Read more