The State Government has identified several Park Lands sites that it is holding hostage while demanding the release of other Park Lands sites on which it wants to put enormous new buildings.

These proposed "land swaps" are like the 'shell game' or the pea and thimble trick. They are being offered to make it appear as if your Park Lands would be winning.

The City Council decided on 12 July to sell to the State Government a slice of this Park (Frome Park / Nellie Yaminyemmerin Park, in Park 11) to extend the Botanic High School further into your Park Lands.

Separately, the City Council is expected to hand over part of Kate Cocks Park (in Park 27) for a new State Government multi-storey car park.

In return, the State Government has now identified some other Park Lands sites which it would consider transferring to City Council ownership, so that the Council could make these other sites available to the public.

The promise would seem to be an admission that the State Government has been preventing access to these other parts of your Park Lands, and is now prepared to use them as bargaining chips in hostage negotiations with the City Council.

A draft Memorandum of Understanding, released by the City Council, identifies eight options, although two have been depicted on maps as the Government’s preferred sites for handing over. These two sites were identified in a Draft Memorandum of Understanding as 'Option 1' and 'Option 2'.

This peaceful bushland trail along the River Torrens ("described as Option 1") is owned by the State Government. This narrow strip of land is right alongside the River Torrens / Karrawirra Pari upstream from the weir.

If this is the land that is offered to the City Council to compensate you for the loss of a High School building site within Park 11, then it is no compensation at all.

This land is already Open Green Public. The draft Memorandum of Understanding describes this area as "not readily publicly accessible". But that is a lie. Although it requires landscaping to improve access to the river, the land is already publicly accessible. People walk here every day alongside the River Torrens/ Karrawirra Pari.

Option 2 is land next to the Old Adelaide Gaol, marked in purple on the two images below.

These images indicate the land that is being held hostage, so that the State Government can grab other City Council-managed Park Lands and build:

• a new Women’s and Children’s Hospital, and a new multi-storey car park (hostage sites marked in green)

• the Botanic High School extension in Frome Park (hostage site marked in purple).

In short, these proposed "land swaps" are like the 'shell game' or pea and thimble trick.

They are being used to make it look like your Park Lands are winning. But the reality is that your Park Lands are losing every time a new building covers part of your Park Lands in concrete.

From 1 September, you will lose part of Frome Park / Nellie Yaminyemmerin Park, in Park 11) as the Government builds a new eight-storey extension of the Botanic High School further into your Park Lands.

Later, you will lose a large slice of Kate Cocks Park in Park 27 as the State Government builds a new multi-storey car park.

You will also lose this site off Port Road for a new Women’s and Children’s hospital.

In each of these cases, your Open Green Public Park Lands are losing. Nothing promised by the State Government affects the reality of those planned losses. There will be no new Park Lands created to replace the losses. The best that could be said in defence of these arrangements is that fences might be torn down to give you long-denied access to areas that were already part of your Park Lands.

OTHER HOSTAGE SITES

What is even more surprising is that the State Government has identified at least six other sites that it is apparently holding hostage, for possible return to the City Council, one day, to be managed in future as Open Green Public Park Lands.

Options 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 or 8 are not fully described but apparently involve unspecified PARTS of:

• The so-called "Lot Fourteen" (old Royal Adelaide Hospital site), (Park 11) - described as 'Option 3';

• Adelaide Zoo (Park 11) - described as 'Option 4';

• Land above an 1870s heritage-listed underground reservoir on the corner of O'Connell Street and Barton Terrace East in Reservoir Park / Kangatilla (Park 4) - described as 'Option 5';

• Thebarton Police Barracks (Park 27) - described as 'Option 6';

• Torrens Parade Ground (Park 12) - described as 'Option 7'; and

• West Terrace cemetery (Park 23) - described as 'Option 8'.

To the extent that any of these Park Lands sites might be returned to Open Green Public Adelaide Park Lands, then there is an onus on the State Government to explain which part has been identified, and why each parcel is being with-held from public Park Lands.

Is every one of these parcels of land effectively a hostage being imprisoned to negotiate future Park Lands losses with the City Council?

If you think Adelaide can do better than this, then take action!