Roller shutters in Gooseberry Hill

The WA Police figures for Gooseberry Hill are short and low:

• 10 burglaries in 2025, the same number as in 2024
• a 2025 rate of 3.0 per 1,000 residents, below the metropolitan rate of 4.0
• an average of 9.2 a year across 2021 to 2025

With 3,323 residents, a couple of incidents is enough to move the yearly total a long way, so these numbers are too small to read a trend. Reading much into any single year, up or down, would be a mistake.

A shutter's job is the same whatever the count. Rolled down, it is a physical barrier on windows and doors, and it makes forced entry slower and noisier.

The suburb takes its name from a hill recorded in 1878, believed to refer to the cape gooseberries that thrived there. Its homes are almost all detached: 96.7% separate houses in 2021, 2.6% semi-detached or townhouses and 0.6% flats.

That points to residential roller shutters, built in Wangara for each window and door. Bedrooms are a common first step, then living areas and large sliding doors. Ozroll's E-Series can also collect and store energy from the sun to run its motors.

Outdoors, a covered deck or patio can be closed in with motorised outdoor blinds, or with Ziptrak, Slidetrack and cafe blinds. Motorised blinds can be paired with sun and wind sensors that adjust them automatically as the weather changes.

Gooseberry Hill is in the City of Kalamunda, which operates under Local Planning Scheme No. 3. For a single house, the state rules exempt shutters from development approval when the R-Codes apply, the work is deemed-to-comply and the place is not heritage protected, meaning it is not on a heritage list or the State Register and not within a heritage area.

Because the whole suburb is bush fire prone, one more condition matters here. Where a site is assessed at BAL-40 or BAL-FZ, the state rules require development approval for the development they cover, whatever the exemption says.

Seniors Card holders should look at the WA Seniors Card Safety and Security Rebate. Security window screens or window shutters qualify, with up to $400 back per household, claimed once over the life of the scheme. In a suburb where 27.2% of people are 65 or over, it is worth asking about.