Bunbury residents among finalists for WA’s top heritage gong for restoration work & sharing community stories

Two Bunbury residents have been recognised for their work bringing the pages of history to life, having been named finalists in the WA Heritage Awards. Megan Lawless and Kevin Coote have been working to share Bunbury’s history with the community and will head to Perth on Friday in the hope of returning as winners. After a traumatic life event sent her world into a spin, Ms Lawless found her footing by creating the Memories of Bunbury Facebook page — an online platform to share old photographs and stories of life in Bunbury with a community of more than 25,000 people since 2013. “I had something really traumatic happen and I left my job and I was quite lost for a while, and when I started (the page) everything sort of fell into place and I found what I was supposed to be doing,” she said. The work has led to her nomination for the volunteer individual contribution award, something she said was a tribute to the work of the whole community. “I don’t take it personally for me — it’s about the whole page and the community,” Ms Lawless said. Mr Coote was the driver behind the renovations of the city’s old Commonwealth Bank building, restoring it to its former glory and landing a spot in the conservation or adaptive reuse of a State registered place category. The project involved transforming the old building into a new disability-friendly multi-office space that maintained its heritage characteristics. “It’s a great asset to the city,” Mr Coote said. “It’s a shame there are not more older buildings being restored in the city centre. We need more to be restored to make it a vibrant CBD.” The Donnybrook Goods Shed and Station Square revitalisation work and the ArtGeo Courthouse interpretation and upgrade are also finalists in the interpretation project category.