Langley Park and Ozone Reserve

Langley Park was created on reclaimed land to respond to the public need for open space near the city and was gazetted as a Park in December 1920.  It was the site for Perth’s first airstrip.  Major (later Sir) Norman Brearley (1890-1989), a Geelong born aviator, used the area as a landing strip when he pioneered civil aviation in Western Australia in the 1920s.  He had moved to Western Australia in 1919 and began to promote the future of aviation for the state.  In early 1922, West Australian Airways became Australia’s first commercial air service, based at Langley Park. The reclaimed land became very boggy in winter months and by 1923 Brearley had moved his company to a landing strip in Maylands.  In 1937 the first section of Riverside Drive was opened by the Acting Lord Mayor, T.W. Langley and named Langley Park after him.  Retained in the park is a pumping station building from 1914, one of the first sewerage pumping stations in Perth. In 1989 a new central sewage station was built, and the old pumping stations were decommissioned, the Langley Park one being transferred to the City of Perth.  The Park remains popular for both sporting and cultural events in the City.