by Shane Sody
APA has been lobbying since 2009 to have the Adelaide Park Lands declared a State Heritage Area.
Despite a positive recommendation from the State Heritage Council in 2018, the State Government has kept the recommendation on "pause" now for almost three years. (not counting the “pause” of the previous nine-year period between our nomination of the your Park Lands in 2009 and the Heritage Council’s recommendation in 2018).
So it is with a sense of amazement that we read of a new push by the Adelaide City Council to heritage-list not the Park Lands, but a patch of bitumen that has been despoiling one Park for the past few decades.
This patch of bitumen was used for the racing car "pits" in the centre of Victoria Park/ Pakapakanthi (Park 16) during the years of the Formula One motor race (1985-1996) and the Supercar races that followed (1999-2019).
At a City Council meeting on Tuesday 12 October, Councillor Greg Mackie attempted to win Council support for re-greening this central area of Victoria Park / Pakapakanthi (Park 16) by planting more trees to provide shade. His motion did not even call for the removal of any bitumen yet it was wrongly reported that way..($$ subscriber-only link)
Cr Greg Mackie and Victoria Park / Pakapakanthi (Park 16)
The motion was amended by the Council’s dominant faction to look at the possibility of heritage-listing the bitumen.
The future of motor racing in this Park will be an issue in the State election. The Liberal State Government has decided that future motor sport events will be held at Tailem Bend and has started selling off the temporary grandstands and other infrastructure that was used to stage the previous events.
However, Opposition leader Peter Malinauskas has promised (threatened?) that if SA Labor wins the March 2022 State election, motor racing will be coming back to this Park. More than 1,600 people have signed a petition urging SA Labor not to reinstate fossil fuel motor racing to a clean green park.
Opposition leader Peter Malinauskas has declared his support for returning Supercar racing to this Park.
Read more in The Advertiser ($$ subscriber-only link)
