Cash gaol
MUCH has been said and televised about the condition of Fremantle’s Roundhouse and the expensive repair and maintenance program needed.
I travel a great deal – four to five months a year – to several countries and frequently visit various historical sites, temples, museums and other places of interest.
A relatively high proportion of them require an entrance fee to be paid which is usually the equivalent of $2-5 in local currency, sometimes more.
To put that in perspective it’s the equivalent of around $10-$25.
Judging by the number of visitors to the Round House, claimed to be 150,000 a year, a fee of $5 to enter would raise in the region of $750,000 per annum.
If visitors were charged $20 it would raise $3 million a year!
We are going to be paying a fee to enter the new State Museum in Perth. I understand that will be $20. We pay about $12-15 to visit special art shows at the WA Art Gallery.
Why not ask tourists to pay to visit the Round House?
From memory the minimum fee to visit Ankor Wat in Cambodia is US40, the maximum about US$80 (depending on how many days visitors wish to visit).
The site has in excess of five million visitors a year and entry is via an extensive toll gate.
The total income is a minimum of US $200 million. Not bad.
Considering the number of visitors council claim come to Fremantle every year, it would be an idea to build a toll gate on the new traffic bridge and relieve all residents of any rates.
Roger Garwood
Attfield Street, Fremantle

Have Speedos, will travel
I REFER to the comment by Melville councillor Guy Wieland in the March 30 edition of the The Herald.
In his concern for the city’s legion of surfers – 3000 to 6000 plus – who will now have a long drive to the beach, he comments “Can you imagine if parents had to drive for a 40 kilometre round trip so their kids could play hockey each weekend – it just wouldn’t happen.”
You’ve picked the wrong sport Cr Wieland: As a kid growing up on a farm, the round trip each weekend was 52km for hockey games.
Add to that one afternoon each week, when we had to be picked up from hockey training after school – that’s another 52km.
Extra training days when finals were coming up, and more still for high-school carnivals in the nearest other towns.
Multiply this by the 10 years that our parents were prepared to travel to have myself and my sibling take part in team sport.
This is the regular scene in country Australia, but it also applies to city kids. Games are played from Joondalup to Rockingham, and parents car pool to give their children the opportunity to play team sports on open-grassed playing fields.
And they take them to the beach as well to have fun in the natural waves of the ocean (us country kids did all our swimming in the rivers and dams).
After suggesting the “straight grassed areas” are relatively unused, Cr Wieland’s concluding remarks tells just how poorly the whole project was thought out:
“ … the council could simply have filled in the pool area, and planted grass and created fields for other sports.”
A wave park, yes, but not at the expense of playing fields and open grass space and beautiful trees.
Carline Kelers,
Clydesdale Street, Alfred Cove