Anzac Cove altered after major works says report

MELBOURNE - Roadworks at Anzac Cove, the site of the 1915 Gallipoli landings, have radically reshaped the area and removed historic landmarks, a newspaper report said today.

The original landmarks are mostly gone because of major works, a Sunday Age investigation said.

The landscape was dramatically altered in the past three months, as Australians and New Zealanders prepare for their 90th anniversary visit later this month.

The roadworks were requested by the Australian government to provide better access for record crowds expected at the anniversary service.

The work left the sacred site scarred and radically altered, the report said.

Missing landmarks included the slopes of the Aru Burnu knoll - the site of furious exchange with the Turks, portions of MacLagan's Ridge and Anzac Gully.

Senior Australian officials who visited the site recently were surprised by the intrusive nature of the roadworks on the foreshore, the report said.

Opposition Leader Kim Beazley says Mr Howard is to blame for destructive roadworks at Australia's most sacred offshore site, Anzac Cove.

Mr Beazley today described as a tragedy roadworks around Gallipoli, which have reportedly radically reshaped the area and removed historic landmarks.

He said it was the Australian government's fault the area had been scarred because it had asked the Turkish government to improve roads around Anzac Cove to cope with the thousands of Australians and New Zealanders who travelled to the site each year for Anzac Day services.

"They went out there and argued that the Turks should do something about providing better transport facilities in the area and said that they were going to put this on the world heritage register and the Australian national register and then there's no follow through," Mr Beazley told ABC TV.

"And if what has happened is that the topography of the site has been substantially altered then that's a tragedy because it cannot be repaired.

"It's we who asked the Turks to do this.

"I think this is very important to understand here, this is not something that the Turks naturally would have arrived at doing themselves.

"But we started putting the pressure on the Turks to do things about parking arrangements and about the road system through the area.

"I'm not here attaching any blame to the Turkish government at all.

"This is a lack of follow through by John Howard.

"If what has happened is true then the blame lies entirely at the feet of the Australian government."

Mr Beazley said any change to the topography of the site was significant because it would not allow young Australians to clearly picture what their ancestors fought through.

"It has become as sacred a site for Australians as anything else you care to imagine," he said.

"And part of the challenge for them, part of what they want to do, is to be able to imagine exactly what they went through and therefore the topography is significant.

"And if the topography has been changed, that's significant.

"It is just so typical of this government."

- AAP