Lord Alistair McAlpine returns to Broome and urges tourism development stay below the palm tree line

Lord Alistair McAlpine of West Green, the down-to-earth Broome visionary, was back in the Kimberley region for the first time in a decade.

And he liked what he saw, with one caveat.

“It’s important the planners stick to the ‘no higher than a palm tree’ height principle when it comes to new development,” he told Property Observer before departing Broome last Friday.

Describing the heat during his six-day visit as like a very gentle sauna, McAlpine, the treasurer of the British Conservative Party under Margaret Thatcher, was there to be recognised by the shore for his contribution to putting the place on the tourism map.

Once dubbed by the eastern states press as "Lord Of The Bush", he was formally recognised at a ceremony last week given the presentation of the shire's highest honour, Freeman of the Municipality.

Coming to buy seashells, he first visited the former pearling town in 1979 and was taken with it – albeit describing it as a derelict town.

Within hours of arriving in the Kimberley town he’d purchased a cottage, then the Sun Cinemas (pictured above), and within a few years he'd started a zoo and a luxury resort.

He had been building Perth property since the mid-1960s including construction of the Pamelia hotel through his family business.

His acquisitions of Broome properties – many of the best of the pearling master's cottages – got up into the 20s.

“Without its old houses, Broome was nothing,” the softly spoken McAlpine told Property Observer.

His biggest acquisition was the Cable Beach property – then a caravan park and sewer – which is now the Cable Beach Resort (pictured above). It was bought quite informally – a beer mat contract – at the Roey pub.

“The Cable Beach Resort is far better than in the past,” McAlpine acknowledged.

Broome, set in one of Australia's great wilderness areas, is easily isolated.

McAlpine’s exit from the town came in the wake of the debilitating 1989 pilots’ strike, and he said he might still be there but for it.

“It’s greatly improved since my day,” he said, dressed dapperly in earthy colours that matched the geographical locality, but perhaps not suiying the temperature.

“The town has developed very well, but it’s not there yet.

“There’s a lot more buildings, but not much has changed.”

‘It’s a mature town, but I’ve been impressed by the restraint. They’ve stroked it terrifically,” he said.

He says there’s a need for more foliage in the town.

During a public gathering he was quizzed on the impact arising from the development of a gas project at James Price Point.

“Resources will be a short-term thing,” he suggested.

But he indicated he was more concerned at the prospect of eco-hotels opening up through the Kimberley and people arriving to them on buses and in gas-guzzling four-wheel drives.

He is keen for railway lines to be constructed in the region. He suggests a railway line from Meekatharra to Broome and onto Darwin and a narrow gauge rail line from Broome up to Cape Leveque on the Dampier Peninsula.

In 2010 he stepped down from his seat in the House of Lords.

Photographs by Jonathan Chancellor

He lives with his wife, Athena (pictured above), in southern Italy, which he says has a similar dry climate, owning a haute bed-and-breakfast, the 15th-century Il Convento di Santa Maria di Costantinopoli, in Apulia.