Welcome to Save Perth Hills Inc.
Western Australia's longest running single-issue local Community campaign.
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JANUARY 2026: SAVE PERTH HILLS UPDATE
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Save Perth Hills (SPH) was established in 1991 – making 2026 our 35th dedicated year working to stop a stranded and inappropriate sprawling urban townsite for more than 3,000 people, in Stoneville, in Perth’s environmentally vulnerable and increasingly bushfire prone Hills.
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During September to December 2025 a significant appeal was heard in WA’s independent State Administrative Tribunal (SAT). The appeal was launched by Australia’s biggest private land developer, Satterley Property Group, effectively aimed at overturning more than three decades of relentless community opposition to the so called ‘North Stoneville townsite.’
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Lawyers representing SPH, the WA Planning Commission, and Shire of Mundaring remained united in their opposition to proposed ‘North Stoneville’, and formally rejected the plan for the third time in five years.
The 2025 Appeal
The essence of Satterley’s appeal was to reverse more than thirty years of continuous community opposition to an urban-style townsite development plan for more than 3,000 people in Stoneville. (Local population 2,400). The site, and its local region, have suffered devastating bushfires in recent years, with the loss of more than 150 homes and thousands of hectares of bushland.
2026 Decision Pending
A decision on Satterley’s appeal, by SAT Deputy President Judge Henry Jackson, is expected in the first half of 2026.
1991-2026: Historic and Current Opposition
Opposition to proposed ‘North Stoneville’ has become a defining feature of the Mundaring Shire’s modern planning history. Over 35 years, thousands of local residents and community members have written thousands of public submissions, while senior planning authorities, and National and State politicians have united in voicing, and lodging, formal objections to the plan. Objections and concerns include increasingly frequent and severe bushfires, entrapment during bushfires, evacuation gridlock on narrow rural roads, and an unprecedented scale of environmental destruction.
SPH Legal Precedence and Appeal Intervention Success
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Historic Decision: 21 February 2025
Judge Jackson granted SPH the right to ‘intervene’ – the only community group granted official ‘Party’ status under WA’s Planning and Development Act 2005.
• Intervention Reasoning:
Judge Jackson was satisfied SPH actions were motivated by members' lived experience with significant bushfires, and their long-held fears that the proposed development would increase risks to life and property.
• Benefits of Intervention Status:
The status enabled SPH to bring in community witnesses, and an expert in human behaviour in bushfire evacuations, to challenge Satterley's plans.
2015-2025: Snapshot:
In 2015 Satterley Property Group entered a business arrangement with North Stoneville landowner, the West Australian Anglican Church hierarchy, including Chair of the Anglican Diocese and former Rio Tinto boss, Sam Walsh, and WA’s Anglican Archbishop Kay Goldsworthy.
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Satterley and the Church did not reveal to the Community they were they working on a plan until the release of their first Structure Plan on 18 December, 2018, one week before Christmas Day. Satterley gave the Community just three weeks, over Christmas / New Year to submit comments to Mundaring Shire. SPH activated the local Community and, in three weeks, a record 957 submissions were lodged with the Shire, with almost every submission opposing the plan.
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In August 2019 a record 1,200 people packed a Special Mundaring Shire Council Meeting to witness the Council unanimously reject the plan, a rejection upheld by WA’s Planning Commission in 2020, 2023, and again, in December 2025.
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The Proposed ‘North Stoneville’ Site
The site is 535 hectares – 140 hectares bigger than Perth’s Kings Park, almost 200 hectares larger than East Perth, and larger than New York’s Central Park and London’s Hyde Park, combined. If the plan is approved, Satterley and the Anglican Church will bulldoze 60,000 Jarrah and Marri trees, many between 100 and 200 years old, which provide habitat support for WA’s Endangered Black Cockatoos.
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The Anglican Church and Satterley want to bulldoze 60,000+ trees and turn 530 hectares into a firetrap URBAN sprawling townsite. The critical habitat of Endangered Baudin's and Carnaby's Cockatoos and Vulnerable FOREST Red-tailed Black Cockatoos will be wiped out, along with their nesting hollows that take 100-200 years to develop.
Save Perth Hills Inc.
SPH is based in the heart of Perth Hills in Western Australia’s Mundaring Shire, part of Australia’s only two remaining internationally-recognised biodiverse regions.
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Since 1991 the SPH Community has campaigned to stop a firetrap and environmentally destructive 1990’s-style stranded Urban townsite for more than 3000 people. The 550-hectare Hills’ land was ‘gifted’ to the Anglican Church by Queen Victoria in the1890’s. The Church calls the land ‘North Stoneville’. Save Perth Hills calls the land the Biggest Business Embarrassment of the Anglican Church Perth Diocese – the Church’s real-estate business arm.
If the plan goes ahead, 60,000 TREES, some 200 years and older, which provide critical habitat to ENDANGERED BLACK COCKATOOS, will be BULLDOZED by the Church and its business partner - Australia’s biggest private land developer, Satterley Property Group.
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WHY NORTH STONEVIILLE MUST NEVER BE BUILT
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SPH’s opposition to ‘North Stoneville’ is backed by repeated rejections of Satterley and the Church’s plan, including from:
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Western Australia’s top planning authority, WA Planning Commission (WAPC)
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WA’s Department of Fire and Emergency Services (DFES)
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Mundaring Shire Council
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Save Perth Hills’ Community and
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More than 4,000 public submissions; and
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Evidence of Perth’s Hills increasing bushfire volatility and environmental vulnerability.
In recent years devastating bushfires have destroyed or damaged more than 250 homes in this semi-rural and rural region, including on and around ‘North Stoneville.’ Hundreds of Hills’ residents and families have been impacted by these bushfires, some permanently.
In 2021, Perth Hills’ worst bushfire in history, the Wooroloo Bushfire, destroyed 87 homes and11,000 hectares of bush.
The fire burned within 5 kilometres of proposed ‘North Stoneville’.
Adding 3000 extra people, KNOWINGLY, inside a proven and Extreme Bushfire Zone, in an inappropriate ‘Urban’ setting, would also place surrounding residents in great danger, with the area’s tight, narrow rural road network at risk of deadly gridlock during mass evacuation in a bushfire emergency. These bushfires are becoming increasingly severe – and frequent.
Read our latest updates here ....
Contact Details
Email: admin@saveperthhills.net Facebook: Save Perth Hills
PO Box 33, Stoneville, WA 6081
