This policy deals with the naming and renaming of shopping centres in the ACT and sets guidelines for ascribing names to the various categories of shops planned for and built.

Definitions

Local Centre: Local Centres are provided to meet the day-to-day needs of consumers in the suburb in which the centre is located (for example, Griffith Shops, Palmerston Shops, Holder Shops).

Group centre: Group centres provide the opportunity for major weekly shopping and for the location of retail and personal services requiring a catchment larger than that of a local centre, but smaller than that of a town centre (for example, Cooleman Court in Weston and Kippax Fair in Holt).

Town centre: Town centres are the focal point for higher order retail functions, commercial services, office and community facilities (for example, Belconnen Town Centre).

Policy

Place names for the different categories of shopping centres will not be gazetted.

Names will be assigned at the planning stage, and any research into historical names for use in Group Centre names is to be conducted by the ACT Place Names Officer. The following guidelines must be adhered to with regard to the naming of different categories of shopping centres:

• Local centres

  Where shops are established in a suburb, with the intent that they service mainly local residents, the shops are to retain the suburb name assigned in the planning stage for practical identification purposes (for example, Watson Shops, Griffith Shops, Holder Shops, Palmerston Shops).

• Group centres

  Where a Group Centre is established to service residents in neighbouring suburbs as well as the suburb within which it is located, it is to be ascribed a name of historical significance or relevant to or identifiable with the community it services, and such name to be negotiated at the preliminary stages of negotiation of the Deed of Agreement. For example:

  • Cooleman Court, Weston - provides a shopping centre for residents of Weston Creek. Cooleman is an Aboriginal word associated with the area since early days and is thought to mean 'shield'. It is also the name of the prominent geographical feature situated in the area known as Cooleman Ridge.
  • Jamison Centre, Macquarie - is located in Macquarie and caters for residents of the surrounding suburbs. The theme for the street names in Macquarie is 'Contemporaries of Governor Macquarie' and Jamison is named after Thomas Jamison, a surgeon who arrived with the First Fleet.
  • Kippax Fair, Holt - the street theme for Holt is 'Australian Sportsmen and Sportswomen' and in keeping with this theme, the large complex of shops is named after Alan Falconer Kippax, an Australian and Sheffield Shield Cricket representative.

  An appropriate signifier, for example, Centre, Group Centre, Fair, Court, is to be attached to the name to readily identify the shops as a large complex and ones which service neighbouring centres.

• Town centres

  Where a town centre is being established, it is to retain the district name within which it is located assigned in the planning stage (for example, Gungahlin Town Centre).