Emu Heights, New South Wales

Infobox Australian Place | type = suburb
name = Emu Heights
city = Sydney
state = NSW


caption =
lga = City of Penrith
postcode = 2750
est = 1831
pop = 3321
area = 3.44
propval =
stategov = Penrith
fedgov = Lindsay
near-nw =
near-n =
near-ne =
near-w =
near-e = Emu Plains
near-sw =
near-s =
near-se =
dist1 = 58
dir1 = west
location1= Sydney

Emu Heights is a suburb of Sydney, in the state of New South wales, Australia. Emu Heights is located 58 kilometres west of the Sydney central business district, in the Local Government Area of the City of Penrith.

Sitting on the Blue Mountains escarpment, the suburb is on the fringe of the Sydney metropolitan area. [cite web |title=Penrith City Council, City of Penrith | url=http://www.penrithcity.nsw.gov.au/index.asp?id=413 |accessdate=2007-06-08] It is bounded to the west by the Nepean River and the Blue Mountains local government area.

History

Emu Heights was established by George Innes, a free settler from Bathurst who obtained 400 acres in 1831, near McCann's Island and named it Emu Heights. However, the name "Emu Heights" wasn't officially assigned to the neighbourhood until early 1976. [cite web |title=Penrith City Council, Local Suburb Profiles | url=http://www.penrithcity.nsw.gov.au/index.asp?id=453|accessdate=2007-06-08]

Schools

Emu Heights Public School was founded in 1972. The school had only eighty seven pupils and three teachers, but now has over three hundred students enrolled. [cite web |title=Emu Heights Public School | url=http://www.emuheights-p.schools.nsw.edu.au/Our%20School.html|accessdate=2007-06-08] The school's teaching revolves around seven Key Learning Areas, English, Mathematics, Science, ICT, Human society and its environment, the Creative Arts and Personal Health and Social Development.

Parks

Clissold Park is host to great diversity of Australia's fauna and flora and features basketball, netball and childrens playground facilities. The park does not have formal field sporting facilities but is more than large enough for such and regularly used by the close knit people of Emu Heights for community events. There is a peaceful stream that flows down from the mountain escarpment, though this stream has been recorded to flood the whole park and north along Wedmore Rd in major storms. (The stream was diverted east by housing developers in the 1980's who followed a farmers drainage channel rather that the original flow north beside Wedmore Rd to the Nepean river).

A larger un-named parkland also exists at the north end of Emu Heights, between the suburb and the Nepean River, giving wide access to the river. Sporting fields and golf facilities are being considered for this parkland. Fishing and canoeing are popular as this section of the river is not used by power boats. The section of river accessible from Emu heights is home to a large variety of native and migratory waterbirds. In the early 1960's, the native egg laying mammal the platypus could still be found in this section of the river but has since become extinct.

Population

According to the 2001 census, Emu Heights has a population 3321 and a population density of 9.63 people per hectare.

References

External links