Noranda history: a Florida name, Benara Road’s poultry farms and a council-built suburb

Noranda was built by a council. The Shire of Bayswater planned it through the early 1970s and developed it in stages from 1976, in what was then the largest development carried out by a local government body in Australia.

How Noranda got its name

Landgate records that the name was approved in 1977 after Bayswater council, then the Shire of Bayswater, put it forward. It was taken from Noranda Park, a town in Florida in the United States. Building had already started the year before, in 1976.

Before the suburb

The City of Bayswater’s thematic framework places the area within the country of the Whadjuk dialect groups of the Noongar people.

During the gold rush years, speculators from the eastern states bought land north of Morley that would not be developed for decades. In the 1960s Benara Road was the last stronghold of poultry farming in the district. Part of what is now Lightning Swamp Bushland was a five hectare farm set up in 1933, and in 1963 the swamp and its bush were reserved for parks and recreation under the Metropolitan Region Scheme.

How it grew

Noranda was developed through a resumptive scheme, with the Shire of Bayswater acting as developer on behalf of a number of landowners. The City’s history says the suburb was carefully planned for years before land was released for sale. The thematic framework records that building ran in stages from 1976 to the mid 1980s. The Shire later used the same approach for the Carramar Estate.

The Shire became the City of Bayswater in 1983. In 2016 the Perth Voice reported that Noranda land bounded by Reid Highway, Tonkin Highway and Benara Road would move from the City of Swan to the City of Bayswater on 1 July, ending a dispute of about 25 years between the two councils.

On 8 December 2024 the Ellenbrook Line opened, with a new Noranda Station beside Tonkin Highway at Benara Road.

Places that tell the story

Lightning Swamp Bushland holds what is left of the land before the suburb. Marri, wandoo and flooded gum grow along its drainage lines, and its north-east corner is a wetland that holds water all year. The 1933 farm site inside the reserve is being restored by the community, and the City manages the bushland jointly with the Friends of Lightning Swamp Bushland.

Lightning Park next door, whose clubrooms and changerooms date from 2008, is home to about 1,000 members of football, tee-ball and gridiron clubs. Hawaiian’s Noranda, at Benara Road and McGilvray Avenue, is the suburb’s shopping centre.

Noranda today

The 2021 Census counted 8,002 people in Noranda. The council-planned streets of the 1970s and 1980s now sit beside a railway station, with trains to the city in about 18 minutes.

More about Noranda

For what Noranda is like to live in now, read our Noranda suburb profile. If you own a property in Noranda and are thinking about selling, start with buyers for your property.

Sources

• Landgate: Perth and surrounds suburb names (archived 2022)
• WA Government media statement, 8 May 1997: DOLA home page contains history of Mirrabooka/Nollamara
• City of Bayswater: History 1930 to present
• City of Bayswater Thematic Framework (April 2020)
• City of Bayswater: Lightning Swamp Bushland
• City of Bayswater: Upgraded spectator area at Lightning Park (19 August 2025)
• Perth Voice: Noranda joins Baysy (31 March 2016)
• METRONET: Ellenbrook Line officially open
• ABS 2021 Census QuickStats: Noranda

Top image: Lightning Park Recreation Centre, Noranda, 2021. Photo: Steelkamp, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Dates and names are drawn from the sources above. Where sources differ, we have said so or given an approximate date.

By Key Performance Real Estate, 338 Beaufort Street, Perth