Sydney suburbs: Along with its solitary claim to fame, Westleigh

Whenever I end up in that very Sydney chat, “so where do you live?“, I answer and brace for the inevitable blank stare. “You know the big Maccas you pass before heading up the coast? Or that classic Aussie film Don’s Party? No?”

Perfect, I think to myself – another person who has never heard of the suburban utopia that is Westleigh.

To be fair, I had no idea where it was either until one day as a teen, my friend and I set off from my family home in Cherrybrook to go for a bushwalk in the Berowra Valley Regional Park. After an hour or so of “bush bashing”, followed by more than a moment of panic that we were lost, we emerged into a foreign, yet familiar-looking suburban street.

While I naively thought we had walked to Newcastle, a passing door-to-door salesperson informed my friend and me that we had, in fact, arrived in Westleigh, about 700 metres away as the rainbow lorikeets fly.

Real estate agents will tell you it’s a place of idyllic 1970s suburbia with countless parks, great schools, an abundance of bushland and mountain bike tracks. It’s also home to a locally loved shopping village that has everything you could need: the Aldi aisle of temptation, a Friendly Grocer and great food and coffee at “Six & Seven” run by the lovely Benson and Sophia (nothing to do with the viral internet meme despite the sniggers of school kids).

Westleigh is so sleepy that on a recent episode of Selling Houses Australia featuring a classic Westleigh home set among the bush, the footage they used to show the vibrant life of the average resident was not shot in Westleigh at all. I turned to my wife and asked, “is there a shopping street I am not aware of in Westleigh?” Turns out all the footage was shot in Wahroonga, about 15 minutes away. It seems we weren’t exciting enough for the B-roll.

Westleigh has played its part in developing other parts of the city. In the past, it was home to orchards, poultry farms, a juvenile detention centre, a brickworks that churned out five million bricks a year to aid development of the city’s rail network, and the Formica factory which made kitchen benchtops found in every new home at the time. I’m also told by my physio, who is a long-time resident, Westleigh also hosted a wild swingers party scandal that was front page news in the ’70s.

The name first suggested for the suburb was Elouera, meaning “a pleasant place”, and it fits, especially if you like being wrapped in bushland. Here, sunsets spill over the eucalypts and catch you straight in the eyes as you drive along Duffy Avenue in the late afternoon. Cockatoos carry on in the treetops, stealing your lemons straight off the backyard tree, and even echidnas have been known to wander into the preschool right in the middle of an Easter egg hunt.

Bushland and a peaceful life in a cul-de-sac suburb comes at a price, though. The minute a storm rolls in, it’s not uncommon for neighbours on the local Facebook page to propose a cheeky bet on how long it will be until we lose power.

In my five years living here, I recall seeing mention of Westleigh in the paper only once, and sadly it was about the council being requested to pay back the $36 million grant that was received to create Westleigh Park. Do we need more parks? As the father of a young son, I most definitely see their value. On a weekend, Ruddock Park is the beating heart of the community, full of kids’ sports in the morning and birthday parties in the afternoon while parents relax on the grass sipping a coffee or a cheeky beer when the weather is just right.

I often feel a lingering frustration that Westleigh, and so many others beyond the usual city ring, are dismissed or simply overlooked by the media, restaurant owners and inner-city residents. They are treated as insignificant beside the bustling foodie promise of the inner west or the glinting blue water and supposed polish of the eastern suburbs. Maybe it’s time the city gave something back to the ’burbs.

I remember the mix of disappointment and excited speculation when the Salvos store shut. An Indian restaurant was going in. No, I heard it was a pizza place. Maybe even a Woolworths Metro. Then it turned out to be a Lifeline instead.

An eternal optimist, I still hope that one day someone taps into the area’s history as the home of one of the biggest maltworks of its time, the now-abandoned Thornleigh Maltworks, and opens a brewery. It could bring a little inner west buzz and offer some proper nightlife, the kind I was mistakenly promised on Selling Houses Australia.

Change can feel almost forbidden in the “Bushland Shire”. That was clear from the outrage on the community Facebook group when it was announced we were finally getting a bottle shop. It was, of course, replacing the bottle shop that had closed three years earlier and sat there since, eerily stocked to the rafters like an alcoholic’s Mary Celeste. “We already have two places to buy alcohol,” they cried. I couldn’t help reminding them that, as the home of Don’s Party, we had a reputation to uphold.

While the suburbs are not for everyone, and Westleigh remains a mystery to most, I am very happy to call it my home. Perhaps it would just be nice to have a wine bar or a small pub.

Andrew West is an urban planning enthusiast and public servant.