News

Croydon Avenue Reserve, West Croydon Renaming Request Approved

6 May 2024

Reserve Sign for Eileen Harris Reserve

At its meeting of 22 April 2024, the Council considered the public request to rename Croydon Avenue Reserve in West Croydon. Having considered the Asset Management Committee's (AMC) endorsement of the renaming requests at its meeting of 15 April 2024 (Item 4.19), the outcomes of community engagement, our Reserve Renaming Policy and other factors, Council approved the request to rename the reserve to ‘Eileen Harris Reserve’.

During the course of this request and subsequent community engagement, we heard from many members of the local community by way of deputations at both the AMC and Council meeting, both in support and in opposition to the request. There was also general public interest on social media and from ABC Radio.

If you missed the community engagement outcomes, click here to see the high-level results.

Overall, majority of unique respondents were in support of the renaming proposal, with 89% in support of renaming the reserve, 10% against changing the name of the reserve, 1% not minding either way what the reserve is called or non-committal.

We thank everyone who participated in the consultation process related to the name of Croydon Avenue Reserve. It's so valuable to hear about your local, historic, social and cultural connections to the reserve, personal stories and, for those of you who knew Eileen’s, hearing about your personal relationships with, and experience of Eileen's community contributions over many years in the area.

We are pleased to share the new reserve name signage promoting the reserve as "Eileen Harris Reserve" was installed by Council on Friday morning, 3 May 2024. We have heard that Eileen was very overwhelmed and humbled by this community acknowledgement.

We would also like to acknowledge that throughout this process we received suggestions and comments from interested community about alternative name suggestions to recognise other individuals or with specific cultural reference. As such, we have provided some answers to questions about reserve naming, for your information, below.