The small town Nhill, nestled in Victoria’s wheatbelt, has had a makeover after urban designers Mike Smith and Associates were contracted by the Hindmarsh Shire Council to combat a dwindling population.
The town, which was the subject of a quirky 1997 film The Road to Nhill, is roughly equidistant from Melbourne and Adelaide, and was struggling to retain population, and to attract and keep higher-qualified staff. Landscape architects and urban designers Mike Smith and Associates were brought in as part of an urban design framework to make the township more tourist and resident friendly.
“They looked at everything that could be improved, to make Nhill a more feasible township for people to want to stay instead of driving straight through,” explains Peter Dawson, the shire’s properties, purchasing and contracts manager.
The Nhill (the ‘h’ is silent) plan capitalises on the main street’s broad median strip. Every day, coaches on the Melbourne-Adelaide run pull into the clay-paved parking lanes at the strip’s western end. Underpinning the lanes are 200 mm concrete slabs, topped with 300 mm of cement-stabilised crushed rock. The pavers are bedded in sand and have slurried joints of about 5 mm thickness.
The pavement shows no sign of distress despite high wheel loads and braking and turning stresses. “It hasn’t moved,” says Peter Dawson. The other paving in this precinct is laid on crushed rock and sand. The narrow paver joints are sand filled. “We are not having a problem with them; no movement at all,” reports Peter Dawson.
Paving around the Nhill tourist information centre complements the town’s handsome architecture, and the town’s war memorial at the far end of the redevelopment is flanked by a clay paved apron.
“We hare very happy with the result,” says Peter Dawson.
The sympathetic streetscape redevelopment will help Nhill retain its place in the sun.