Cobourg Council is now entering a familiar minefield. That of designating an old building. This time it is the Mansion known as “Strathmore House” for a little of the history click here.

For those who do not follow current affairs this house is part of the lands referred to as “Brookside”. In the Fall 2021 issue of the “watershed magazine”, a fantastic local success story in itself, Elizabeth Palermo wrote this article called “Brookside new beginnings”. In retrospect this article summed up the optimism of the local conservation groups and interested individuals who expressed their hopes for the development of the site. The article quotes local MPP Davis Piccini expressing his ambition for the public’s interest. Quoting Elizabeth – “In March, MPP for Northumberland-Peterborough South David Piccini invited the public to share their visions for repurposing the site. To date, the new Minister of Environment, Conservation and Parks has received nearly a thousand proposals from a diverse range of groups.” 

Well that was then and this is now. In the years since 2021 the site has been handed over to ‘Infrastructure Ontario’, sold to a development company that nobody had heard of and which operated out of a Mall in Toronto, flipped to somebody else and overrun by ‘campers’ who set up a homeless encampment angering the majority of the Town. It now sits in an unkempt state of neglect awaiting redevelopment. The details of which are only known to the Mayor and his Council who have been dealing with the project behind closed doors.

This week, May 2025 a group of conservationists stood before Council and asked Council to put a Heritage Designation on Strathmore House. Unfortunately in the latest version of Doug Ford 2.0 even if the building was designated it wouldn’t mean much as the laws have changed and can be overridden by the Province at any time. But they tried and the fight goes on.

In a Town that prides itself on Heritage and Heritage Buildings the Councils of the days haven’t really been very successful in saving its heritage. The old Post office building that stood on the South-East corner of King and Division was demolished in the 60s to be replaced by a flatroof utility building, described by the local ACO as a ‘monstrosity’, the Park Theatre stands in a state of demolition by neglect and Sidbrook, an old hospital is definitely one good thunderstorm away from absolute demolition by neglect, if it is not already there. The Town Council of the day had to be dragged kicking and screaming into saving Victoria Hall in 1972 – thank you Lenah Fisher!

The Town Council opted for a hybrid motion, in this debate about Strathmore, that gives notice of the intention to designate and the end result of the discussion was – quote from Cobourg News – “Mayor Cleveland said that immediately designating the property would not be useful and predicted that the developer would appeal. Nevertheless, all Councillors (with the exception of Mayor Cleveland) seemed to want to go with “option 2” which would direct staff to proceed to designate the property.”

So what next? That depends on the developers’s intentions for the site and the timetable for development, both unknown at the moment. But don’t hold your breath folks this is a long process and anything can happen. Those with long memories can remember what happened to the Victoria College Auditorium during its development process – it burned down!