As the Federal election draws near, the Adelaide Park Lands Association has joined a new body: the Australian Heritage Advocacy Alliance.
Your Adelaide Park Lands have been listed on the Australian National Heritage Register since 2008.
However that listing has been ineffectual at stopping the gradual erosion of your Park Lands, with dozens of sites chipped off your Open Green Public spaces to cater for special sectoral interests.
It is a similar story for many other heritage assets around Australia that supposedly have the protection of National Heritage listing.
As the Australian Heritage Advocacy Alliance says
"Our valuable national heritage assets are being squandered in a federal heritage policy ‘vacuum’.
"Heritage issues are seldom to be found on any political agenda. All over Australia, heritage assets are being lost, or are in jeopardy. Irreplaceable losses continue to occur. Much is at stake.
"[The AHAA] will raise awareness of all candidates in the forthcoming federal election about national heritage asset issues, heritage policy deficiencies, heritage asset losses, threats – and importantly propose workable solutions."
The Adelaide Park Lands Association wrote to the AHA on 4 April 2022 (PDF, 6 pages, 3.1 Mb), to join the campaign. Our letter described sites within your Park Lands that have been recently lost and those that are presently threatened. These include Park Lands sites for:
The AHAA has compiled a staggering (and growing) Australia-wide list of heritage assets that have been lost or are presently threatened. The list includes items of built heritage, and natural heritage.
The Adelaide Park Lands are just one of many assets featured on that list. Former heritage assets lost in South Australia include the Fernilee Lodge at Burnside (left) and the Grand Central Hotel in Pulteney Street (right) which was demolished to make way for a car park.
Threatened heritage assets in South Australia include Edmund Wright House in King William Street (left), the giant kelp marine forests off the south-east coast (right), and the heritage suburb Colonel Light Gardens.
You can register to become part of the Australian Heritage Advocacy Alliance – simply email your contact details to: info@ahaa.net.au