What Council Does, or 'Vanishing Functions'
Within this section
Municipal Beginnings | In Search of a Town Hall | The Struggle for Power | Boundaries and Elections | What Council Does, or 'Vanishing Functions' | Further Reading
The Police
Markets
Rocky Roads
Lighting the City
An Unhealthy City - Water and
Sewerage
Rubbish and Rats
For the Good of Your Health
City Planning - Or the Lack of it
The City of Sydney provides a wide range of community services and facilities to residents, business and tourists but many of its original functions have been taken over by the State government and its authorities.
The Police
One of the reasons for Incorporation was control of the local police force. Under the Incorporation Act of 1842, the police were paid by Council and controlled by the Colonial Government. After four years of failing to levy this unpopular rate, Council passed control back to the government so that the police force ultimately became a State rather than a local matter.
Markets
Another Council priority was the control of markets. In the nineteenth century markets formed an important part of the trading experience, and the tolls raised from running the wholesale and retail markets was a large part of Council's revenue. They traded in produce, livestock and fish. The markets were unhygienic and unruly places, and unscrupulous trading practices were common. Hence many of the earliest Council by-laws were attempts at maintaining law and order. This was not easily attained and there are many 'colourful' stories generated by the market culture.
Initially the markets were located in the centre of the town, but rising land prices and changing transport methods eventually forced them further out. In 1945 the State government assumed control of the fish market, and later in 1968 the State Marketing Authority was formed to take over the fruit and vegetable markets. Several of Sydney's old city market buildings survive under other guises.
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Woolloomooloo Fish Market, 1902 (NSCA CRS 51/106) |
In the 1840s, fruit and vegetables were sold at the George Street markets adjoining the Old Burial Ground site, linked to the Corporation wharf at Darling Harbour by Market Street. In 1887, the Council erected the Corn Exchange near the wharf. This is now part of the Nikko Hotel. The Belmore Produce Markets functioned from 1869 at Campbell Street and in the 1890s the New Belmore Markets opened next door on the site of the old cattle markets (hence the name of the area - Haymarket). This building has been refurbished as the Capitol Theatre. The George Street markets, expanded in 1858, were deteriorating by 1891 and were replaced by the Queen Victoria Market Building (QVB). While this was still called a market building it was really arcades of high-class shops, because the City fathers had worked out that this would create more revenue. By the 1950s there was talk of demolishing the QVB, but by 1988 it was restored and remains one of the city's most imposing heritage buildings.
A fish market was established at Forbes Street, Woolloomooloo in 1872, and upgraded in 1893, before moving in 1914 to the Sydney Municipal Markets at Haymarket. What is now known as Paddy's market was originally the Sydney Municipal Markets. They were built between 1909 and 1914 and were the source for all wholesale fresh produce in the city, containing vegetable and fruit markets, a fish market, poultry market and cold storage.
| Sydney Municipal Markets, c. 1920 (NSCA CRS 51/4739) |
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Rocky Roads
Council's attempts at road making, drainage and repair were often less than successful and by the 1870s numerous roads remained unformed, pot-holed or prone to washaways. From the 1880s, major streets were overlaid with woodblocks. This surface was durable but slippery, and bituminisation was soon added to the procedure. In the 1930s the Council's laboratory at Pyrmont (Wattle Street) pioneered methods of dry rolling concrete, thus creating a surface that could be laid cold and used almost immediately. Newer asphalt techniques did not catch on until Council's massive street upgrading program after World War 2.
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Holes of wondrous dimensions were not confined to the early years of roadbuilding. This one devoured this cart in 1918. (CRS 80/27) |
The 1909 Royal Commission on the Improvement of Sydney was critical of the traffic chaos on Sydney's narrow streets. It was bad, but it became much worse after World War 1 when motor vehicles joined horses, sulkies and other incompatible forms of transport on the congested and dangerous streets. A Board of Metropolitan Transit Commissioners had taken over Council's responsibility for vehicular traffic in 1873. Now there was a need for State-wide legislation. The Main Roads Act of 1925 transferred ownership of some roads to the State, left some in local control, and in addition levied the City for contributions to the construction of roads outside its own boundaries.
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Trams, cars, a sulky and pedestrians - evening peak-hour traffic on 23 January 1920. (CRS 80/36) |
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The Cahill Expressway (1958 & 1962) was jointly funded by the State and the Council and built with Council labour.
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Changing the face of Circular Quay - construction of the first stage of the Cahill Expressway, 1955. (CRS48/298) |
Lighting the City
In 1841, the streets of Sydney were first lit by gas, provided by the Australian Gaslight Company. There were 165 gas lamps in the city but most householders still used the cheaper oil lamps. Council left it to the private company to provide Sydney's lighting for the next half-century.
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Pyrmont Power Station, 1919. (NSCA CRS 51/4715) |
It was a different matter in 1904, when the Lady Mayoress switched on the first electric street lights at Pyrmont Power Station. Sydney Council took on the provision of electricity to both private customers and suburban councils. In the 1920s, there was an explosion in domestic consumption as people enthusiastically acquired the new-fangled electrical gadgets. Council's huge Electricity Department was unable to keep up with the demand. This, combined with a corruption scandal at Bunnerong Power Station, led to the creation of Sydney County Council in 1935 to generate and supply electricity. This later became the NSW Electricity Commission.
An Unhealthy City - Water & Sewerage
Until it became polluted from over-use in the 1820s, the freshwater Tank Stream was the town's water supply. By 1839, convicts working under Thomas Busby had carved out water tunnels from a swamp in what is now Centennial Park to Hyde Park. This was called Busby's Bore. Pipes conveyed water to standpipes at various parts of the town and water-carters sold water at one shilling a cask. Council had connected some 72 private houses to the main water pipes by 1844 but their inability to improve the supply was a major reason for their sacking in 1853. In later years, dams were built at Botany and Bunnerong and reservoirs at Paddington and Woollahra and the water mains were gradually extended beyond the Council's boundaries. Supply was often erratic, water was not always pure, and in dry periods it was rationed.
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An open sewer (right foreground) runs beside houses at Little Chambers Street, Ultimo. c. 1906 (CRS 51/3944) |
The sewerage system was even worse with raw sewage being discharged directly into Sydney Harbour. After a series of near catastrophes, fraud allegations, and investigations, legislation in 1880 enabled the construction of a new dam on the Upper Nepean and a sewage outfall at Bondi. All this was beyond Council's capacity to administer and in 1888 these responsibilities went to the new Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board.
Rubbish and Rats
Garbage disposal is one function for which Council is still responsible but it was not always a priority. In the nineteenth century garbage was dumped indiscriminately. The bubonic plague in 1901 alerted Council to the health hazards of accumulations of rubbish throughout the city. Garbage was incinerated or tipped at Moore Park and then at Pyrmont, or punted out to sea. There was public outcry in 1929 when spring tides washed up assorted debris including rats and butcher's offal onto city beaches. After years of wrangling, the Pyrmont incinerator was rebuilt in 1937. More than just an incinerator, it was an architectural marvel designed by the American architect Walter Burley Griffin and his wife Marion Mahony Griffin. After being decommissioned in 1970, Council allowed it to deteriorate and, despite the best efforts of heritage groups, this unique structure was demolished in 1992.
Currently rubbish is dumped at the Council owned site at St Peters, and waste management is administered according to various state acts, including the NSW Waste Minimisation and Management Act 1995 which established the Inner City Waste Board.
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Council's punt at Buckle's Wharf, Pyrmont, 1913 (CRS 80/25) |
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For the Good of Your Health
Today the Council is concerned with a wide range of health and environmental issues. Quality of services and cleanliness of premises and public areas are policed by health officers. From the beginnings of local government local by laws allowed the prosecution of offenders against the public health, but the general level of understanding of what was required to keep a city healthy was limited. The City Health Officer was a part time employee with an independent medical practice who did little more than offer advice to aldermen who had little expertise to deal with the health problems that kept infant mortality rates high and visitations of infectious diseases frequent.
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Dr George Frederick Dansey, City Health Officer, 1884 (NSCA CRS 54/456) |
The Nuisance Inspector oversaw a range of regulations from markets inspections to kite flying to house-to-house inspections. By the early twentieth century there was also involvement in infant health protection and maternal education
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Richard Seymour, Inspector of Nuisances, 1884 (NSCA CRS 54/455) |
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In 1896 the first state public health act was passed. This was not a case of the state taking over. It was more an expansion by all authorities into the new realm of public health concerns.
City Planning - Or the Lack of it
By the early 1870s, Sydney's urban population was more than 135, 000 people, many of them crowded into unventilated housing with little or no drainage. Under the new Corporation Act of 1879, Council gained control over insanitary and unsafe buildings but it had to share this power with a government-appointed City of Sydney Improvement Board. During the 1880s, the City Health Officer and the Nuisance Inspector ordered the demolition of many slum areas. Others remained, however, and when bubonic plague threatened Sydney in 1900, Council was held responsible for failing to eradicate the rats blamed for the public health scare. The State government took over Council's health powers and resumed the wharves and slums of The Rocks and Millers Point, placing them under the control of the newly formed Sydney Harbour Trust.
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Part of resumption at Grose Street, Camperdown, behind the University of Sydney, in 1919. (Camperdown was absorbed into the City of Sydney for a number of years in 1908) (CRS 51/20/2083) |
When Council received further powers to demolish slums in 1905, large residential areas of Ultimo, the Haymarket, Camperdown, Chippendale and Surry Hills were cleared for commercial and industrial development.
Many of these demolitions had been recommended in the 1909 Royal Commission on the Improvement of Sydney. There were years of disruptive street-widening and construction projects in central Sydney.
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Street widenings became a major feature of attempts to 'improve' the City of Sydney. Here, in August 1909, Elizabeth Street is being widened by City Council workers. (NSCA CRS 51/1552) |
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Another strand of development thinking involved recommendations for 'Greater Sydney'. Numerous proposals in the twentieth century to enlarge the boundaries of the city and to give it more powers were routinely knocked back by state governments. The most recent inquiry into boundaries occurred in 2001, but currently there has been no implementation of any change.
From 1957, the city's skyline changed dramatically when the 1912 restriction on building heights was lifted. When it was built in 1962, the 26-storey AMP building was Sydney's tallest but not for long. Council's town planning efforts had little effect on Sydney's rampant development. In 1964, ultimate authority was vested in the State Planning Authority (SPA), empowered to overturn local development decisions.
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The Farmers and Graziers building, Circular Quay, in 1957 just prior to its demolition (CCS CRS 47/1405) |
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The AMP building, Sydney's first skyscraper, under construction around 1960. The building was officially opened in 1962 (CCS CRS 48/1394) |
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The 1960s and 1970s saw profound physical change as landmarks such as Anthony Hordens and the Theatre Royal were demolished. Many felt that the Sydney they knew was disappearing too fast. And there were development pressures beyond the city centre as well. By the end of the 1960s the State Planning Authority had plans for massive commercial redevelopment for Woolloomooloo, an old inner city precinct of 19th century terrace housing. But this was halted under pressure from residents (WRAG - Woolloomooloo Resident Action Group) supported by 'green bans' imposed by the Builders Labourers Federation and a more sensitive approach to planning initiated by the City Council. A three-way agreement between all levels of government secured much of Woolloomooloo for low income medium density housing.
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The changing city skyline - View looking south taken from the AMP building at Circular Quay in 1964, just two years after the building was completed. (NSCA CRS 47/2398) |
In 1988, the Central Sydney Planning Committee, including both Council aldermen and ministerial appointees, was set up to approve major development applications, thus removing significant decisions from the City Council. The role of the Land and Environment Court in overturning decisions of the Council and of the Central Sydney Planning Committee is currently the subject of considerable criticism and comment.
Last Updated: Tuesday 1 March, 2011