There’s been a setback to our hopes of re-greening one or more degraded parts of your Adelaide Park Lands.
In July, we met with the Lord Mayor, Jane Lomax-Smith to try to revive our stalled Park restoration initiative (see below).
However a City executive has followed up that meeting with advice that, despite a previous (2021) agreement, Adelaide City could not allow us to re-green ANY “hard-stand” areas of your Park Lands “at this time.”
The letter means that despite four years of advocacy, planning and fundraising, the doorway that would allow you to re-green even a small part of your Park Lands has been slammed shut, at least for now.
Background
2019
In late 2019, we surveyed our members and supporters to identify the highest-priority areas of your Park Lands that could be restored. We suggested four potential sites, each one of which was being used only for car parking or ad hoc storage.
In late 2019, survey respondents gave the highest priority to restoration of the former bitumen netball courts (the former "Edwards Park") off Anzac Highway, an area of 1.2 hectares in the southern portion of G.S. Kingston Park / Wirrarninthi (Park 23). This area has been used in recent years for truck parking during the Royal Adelaide Show.
2020
Accordingly, in April 2020, we wrote to the former Lord Mayor, Sandy Verschoor, seeking City Council co-operation as envisaged by the Council’s own Strategic Plan "to work with local communities on public greening activities” .
Despite receiving a prompt reply from the former Lord Mayor, who was supportive in principle, it took almost another 12 months before Council staff engaged with us on how such a project might be carried out.
2021
In 2021, Council staff encouraged us to focus instead on a different bitumen area, off Port Road opposite the Thebarton tram stop. With high hopes for community involvement, we entered an agreement in May 2021 to pursue a pilot project over a small patch of this bitumen.
2022
In 2022, we conducted a design competition with prizes in several categories. Imaginative designs were submitted, and we started planning to implement the winning design.
Part of the winning entry from Wenxuan Zhang: “Transit station: Retrospection and connection”.
We even held a fundraising cabaret event, “UnPaving Paradise - Re-Greening Benefit Show” raising more than $1,400 to help bring the winning design into reality.
However, planning for implementation ran into delays, due to concerns about the difficulty of erecting tree-like shade structures.
2023
This year the State Government made an ambit claim over 19 hectares of your Park Lands which included almost all of Bonython Park / Tulya Wardli (in Park 27).
The State Government’s “expanded area” of 19 hectares - any part of which may be subject to “large-scale excavation works” during the eight-year construction period for the proposed new Women’s and Children’s Hospital.
This land is tentatively earmarked for digging trenches, for water, sewer and electricity connections to the State Government’s New Women’s and Children’s Hospital in Park 27.
Although the hospital project team says it’s unlikely there would be any digging on our proposed re-greening site, the mere possibility has led the City Council to withdraw its approval.
On 27 July, we met with the Lord Mayor, to try to get the project revived or alternatively get approval to re-green an alternative hard-stand part of your Park Lands.
APA President Shane Sody (left) and Deputy President Ben Ayris (right) meeting with the Lord Mayor, Jane Lomax-Smith on 27 July 2023.
Talks with City Council staff will be continuing in an effort to identify potential new sites for re-greening initiatives.
We are still holding the $1,400 raised in 2022, and remain hopeful of eventually being able to put that to good use, as soon as the City Council can identify a suitable site for restoration.
Your Park Lands have many areas that are degraded, or covered with concrete or bitumen, that would benefit from being restored to ‘Open, Green, Public.’
