Shane Sody

The State Government has unveiled the full scope of its plans to build over an enormous part of your Open Green Public Adelaide Park Lands.

The scale of the Park Lands assault is unprecedented. A vast area of Park 27 would disappear under the Government's plans to build a new Women's and Children's Hospital, multi-storey car park and associated new roads on the Park Lands that you love.

The diagram below shows the extent of proposed works. The site of the proposed new Women's and Children's Hospital, marked in magenta, is only a relatively small part of the overall project but would nevertheless take up two hectares of your Park 27. That's equivalent to more than 30 average-size house blocks

The area marked in red is the proposed multi-storey car park, to service both the existing RAH and the proposed new WCH. The car park would accommodate more than 1200 cars and would be of a similar size to the hospital - another 30 or so house blocks.

However, it's not just the site of the hospital and car park that is being targeted. A much larger area has been defined for associated roads, utilities, and drainage works, and in case there are changes in design of the project. "Re-zoning" of this huge area of land would make all of it susceptible to future additional infrastructure and new buildings.

The Minister for Infrastructure, Corey Wingard MP describes the target area as "measuring approximately 257,310 square metres. It is bounded by the Royal Adelaide Hospital and the River Torrens to the east, the Adelaide Gaol and River Torrens to the North, Bonython Park and the Thebarton Police Barracks to the west, and Karen Rolton Oval and Park 25 (No.1) to the south.

Excavation works would impact on sites of Aboriginal heritage, so the State Government is undertaking a process of "consultation". It is expected that aboriginal remains and artefacts (campsites) might be uncovered during excavations and that, if so, these remains would be "recovered in consultation with Traditional Owners."

However, the Government is not consulting you on the proposed loss of your National Heritage-listed Open Green Public Park Lands. The Government says it is "committed" to building this project, and has allocated $1.95 billion in this year's State Budget to commence work in the current financial year. Submissions are invited only from "interested Aboriginal parties."

Much of the land is not in the control of the State Government (because it is Park Lands under the control of the City of Adelaide). Nevertheless, "preliminary geotechnical and environmental investigations have already been undertaken." The Minister for Infrastructure intends to confiscate the Park Lands from the Council. In his words: "some land rezoning and acquisition will likely be required."

You can email the Minister at ministerwingard@sa.gov.au

See the Government’s plans here: https://yoursay.sa.gov.au/nwch