Thornlie Overview by Julie Read of Attree Real Estate Agents
Thornlie (including Crestwood Estate & Forest Lakes) in Gosnells, WA is a residential suburb located in the south east of Perth. Thornlie is part of the City of Gosnells and is one of Perth’s more established suburbs identifiable by the larger block sizes, infrastructure and services available to residents.
The Canning River tributary runs through the north side of the suburb. Thornlie contains the two smaller dub-developments of Crestwood and Forest Lakes, the latter being approximately 20 years younger than the main Thornlie development.
It has a growing multicultural population due in part to the lower housing prices and more recently, the purchase of a site for the Australian Islamic College.
Facilities
Roe Highway at the Nicholson Road Exit. Thornlie can be described as a well serviced residential area. It is bisected by a main transport artery, Spencer Road, and is served by the Roe Highway, via Nicholson Road. It has also been serviced as of August 2005, by a passenger railway service terminating at the Thornlie railway station. Commuting services run every 15 minutes between the city and Thornlie. Speaking at the time about the newly completed rail development, the Planning and Infrastructure Minister Alannah MacTiernan stated:
“As well as the station building, car park and railway line, the project included construction of an electrical sub-station at Beckenham, the Kenwick Tunnel, the rail bridge over the Canning River, and the traffic bridge at Spencer Road.”
Telephone services are provided by the Cannington telephone exchange.
Commercial and Retail
Thornlie contains two local shopping malls; Thornlie Square Shopping Centre (which contains two supermarkets and a Post Office) and Forest Lakes. Thornlie Square was the larger of the two until a recent expansion of the Forest Lakes centre as part of the development of a small addition to the Forest Lakes Estate. Thornlie also Spencer Village, located next to Thornlie train station.
Sporting
Lawn Bowls, tennis courts, a skate park, swimming pool, gym, a library and an oval for cricket and football are all available for community usage.
Schools
- Australian Islamic College
- Coolabaroo Neighbourhood Centre
- Forest Crescent Primary School
- Sacred Heart Primary School
- South Thornlie Primary School
- Thornlie Christian College
- Thornlie Primary School
- Thornlie Senior High School
- Thornlie TAFE Campus
- Yale Primary School
Community
Thornlie has two local papers distributed fortnightly, The Comment News and the Gosnells Examiner.
Another community program are the annual Safe City awards including the Community Initiative Award, the Constable Peter Ball Memorial Youth Award and the Community Kids Award.
Demographics
The 2006 Census reported
Thornlie had 8,017 occupied dwellings. 31.1% of these were fully owned.
60.6% of Thornlie residents were born in Australia; 11.3% in England; 3% in New Zealand, and significant smaller percentages from Malaysia, India and Scotland.
18.8% of Thornlie residents spoke another language at home.
1,447 children were aged 0-4 years. This was second only to Canning Vale with 1,836 for all Perth suburbs.
The median weekly family income was $1,193, which compared with $1,171 in Australia as a whole.
Suburban areas
Thornlie contains two significant suburban areas:
Crestwood Estate
Crestwood is a small private estate within Thornlie. It’s a very interesting development as it was built very much as an experimental concept and was in stark contrast to the surrounding suburbia.
Paul Ritter was the designer of Crestwood and his concepts of public shared space and neighbourhood aesthetics are all models of today’s privately built estates.
Where the planning approach was for large blocks and linear roads, Crestwood had small blocks and curved roads. Every road that enters into the area flows out again at some point, no cul-de-sacs. It is also possible to walk the entire way through the estate without once crossing a road due to a system of paths and underpasses. Every house is connected to a public area of parkland and a shared pool facility sits in the middle of the estate.
Originally, Crestwood was planned on being around 5 times the size that it exists today, with each small section being the same size as the current layout having a smaller pool. The entire estate would then feature around a large pool complex with main administration buildings and recreational area.
While a lot of the concepts here did not end up becoming mainstream planning many of the ideas behind them did influence developers. New suburbs are always built with non-linear orientated road systems, smaller blocks and generally focused around a central park or lake.
Forest Lakes
Forest Lakes is the last suburban development of Thornlie, occurring during the 1980′s. A small sub-division called Fresh Water Pond was developed in 2007 but it consisted of a mere few dozen houses. Forest Lakes was once planned to be an expansion of the Crestwood development, but this never eventuated.
Looking to buy or sell in Thornlie, contact Julie on 0422 485 665.
Please note – Some of the information for the Thornlie suburb page was sourced from Wikipedia.
