The State Government has rejected the clearly-expressed wishes of an Adelaide survey, and stamped out the opportunity for a win-win, by choosing to repeat the mistakes of the past and put a new Aquatic Centre on your Open Green Public Park Lands.

The Premier announced today that a new $82 million Aquatic Centre would be built in the south-western quadrant of Denise Norton Park / Pardipardinyilla (Park 2)

A survey conducted by the Adelaide Park Lands Association in July this year received 682 responses, and found overwhelming support for building a new Aquatic Centre on a near-city brownfield site, rather than on Park Lands. The most popular response was for a site close to public transport in Thebarton, Hindmarsh, Bowden or Brompton.

Results of the survey were provided to Infrastructure Minister Tom Koutsantonis.

*The site identified for the new centre contains 61 trees including 11 sugar gums, eight iconic river red gums, and six Moreton Bay fig trees. See the full list below.*

APA President Shane Sody says he doubts whether anyone within the State Government has bothered to read the responses to the survey. "If they had read what people were saying, they would have realised how unpopular it would have been to attack Park Lands yet again.

"The Government's decision, announced today, represents a win-loss. Restoring the site of the current Aquatic Centre to Park Lands is welcome, of course, but it entails inflicting a brand new wound to Adelaide's Open Green Public Park Lands. It would have been a win-win if the State Government had listened to their own voters and targeted a near-city brownfield site instead."

“The Government has not explained why, when it commenced this process, it immediately ruled out every site other than Park Lands sites.”

The Government is also targeting Park Lands sites for a new High School (in Park 11) and is currently reviewing plans for a new Womens and Children's Hospital and a new multi-storey car park within Park 27.

"It's long past time for State Governments to respect, and protect the world-unique treasure on our doorstep. We have the only city in the world built inside a Park, and yet this unique feature is treated, time after time, as merely vacant development sites waiting to be exploited,” Mr Sody said.

These are the trees within the site announced today for a new Aquatic Centre.

Tree – species uncertain 1
Sugar gums (Eucalyptus Cladocalyx) 11
Acacias (including golden wreath wattle) 3
Spotted gum (Corymbia Maculata) 4
Aleppo Pine (Pinus Halepensis) 4
Norfolk Island hibiscus (Lagunaria Patersonia) 3
Red box (Eucalyptus Intertexta) 2
Yellow gum (Eucalyptus Leucoxylon) 9
Moreton Bay Fig (Ficus Macrophylla) 6
other fig trees – species uncertain (Ficus) 2
Kurrajong (Brachychiton) 5
River red gum (Eucalyptus Camaldulensis) 8
Pink Gum (Eucalyptus Fasciculosa) 1
Other eucalypts – species uncertain 2

TOTAL 61 trees on the State Government’s chosen site.