Updated October 2026
Brigadoon is a semi-rural City of Swan locality sitting on top of the Darling Scarp, with the elevated outlook that goes with it. Views like that come from ground that falls away, which is where retaining walls come in. We connect you with builders who cover the 6069 area.
Common wall situations in Brigadoon
Large semi-rural blocks, so the jobs are driveway cuttings, house and shed pads, terracing to create level outdoor space where the ground wants to fall, and batters around tracks and dams. Walls that sit below a built pad or a driveway are carrying a surcharge, which means engineering whatever their height.
Whether your block is on reticulated sewerage or running its own system is worth establishing before a machine arrives, because where a tank, leach drains or an irrigation area sit decides where the wall line can go, where spoil can be stacked and where its drainage can discharge. Your local government holds the records for your address.
The ground under Brigadoon
Perth is a sand city. Up here it is not. The ground is ironstone and laterite gravel over weathered granite, and the City of Kalamunda records in its Local Planning Strategy that reticulated sewerage is constrained in the Hills because hard granite sits close to the surface and is costly to dig through. That same rock is what a post hole has to get through, so ask any builder how the quote prices a hole that hits it.
Drainage is the thing that actually matters. Water that cannot soak away through rock travels sideways and arrives behind the wall, and the Shire of Mundaring names heavy soils and perched water tables as Hills constraints for that reason. Ag-pipe, free draining gravel, geotextile fabric and a lawful discharge point are not optional line items.
What a wall costs in Brigadoon
As a rough guide, most residential walls run from around $200 to $700 or more per metre for a wall about a metre high, depending on material, height, access and engineering. Those are published Australian guide figures rather than a quote, and rock is the reason a Hills number can sit above them. Read the retaining wall cost guide and then get a price for your block.
Approval, and who to ask in Brigadoon
In WA a retaining wall is exempt from needing a building permit only where it retains no more than 500mm of ground, is not tied to other building work or to holding up the land next door, and is not work of a kind that affects adjoining land. The measurement is the ground the wall retains, not the height of the wall, which catches a lot of people out. All three conditions have to be met, so a wall on or near a boundary needs a permit whatever its height. Development approval under the local planning scheme can be a separate question again, and the rules change, so confirm your wall with the City of Swan before you build.
Who is allowed to build it is a statutory question in WA, and it turns on how the work is classified under the building legislation rather than on a figure you can look up and apply yourself. We are not going to settle that on a web page. What is worth doing is simple: ask the builder what registration or licence they hold, check it with Building and Energy, and ask your permit authority what your particular wall requires before you sign anything. Before any digging, your builder should lodge a free Before You Dig Australia (BYDA) enquiry so underground services are located.
Frequently asked questions
Does an elevated block mean a bigger wall?
Usually a taller one, and height is the biggest cost lever there is. Soil pressure grows faster than height, so footings, posts and engineering all step up together.
Is Brigadoon sewered?
We have not verified that for this locality and will not publish a guess. The City of Swan can tell you what is at your address, and it matters because an on-site system constrains where a wall and its drainage can go.
What is the ground like on top of the scarp?
Lateritic cover over the granites and gneisses that form the high ground of the Perth Hills, broadly. Rock at shallow depth is a real possibility, so ask how the quote handles it.
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We also cover nearby Gidgegannup and Jane Brook.