HERITAGE advocate John Dowson has asked WA premier Colin Barnett to fully fund restoration works at Fremantle’s convict-built warders’ cottages.

In a 12-page report prepared by the Fremantle Inner City Residents’ Association, the former deputy mayor calls on the premier to stop WA’s earliest terraced cottages from being sold.

He says the buildings should be given back to Fremantle prison and rented for short-term “specialist heritage accommodation” with any commercial element having to relate to the World Heritage-listed prison.

“We hope you will be able to step in and provide leadership on this issue as the cottages lie empty and in danger of further deterioration or arson,” he states in ‘Warders’ Cottages Fremantle—the shameful neglect of WA’s oldest terrace housing’.

Mr Dowson told the Herald the department of housing had managed the cottages for more than 20 years and should fund the refurbishment of the buildings that were vacated in 2011.

“They should put their hands deeply into their pockets and fix them,” he says. “They should not be put on the open market.”

Homeswest tenants lived in the cottages from 1991 to 2011 before their eviction. The properties were then fenced off.

by CARMELO AMALFI