by Shane Sody
Efforts to protect and restore your Adelaide Park Lands will now be stepped up, after a huge community effort spread over three months finally convinced the State Government not to attack your Park Lands with a gigantic police barracks.
On Sunday 4 June, a thousand Park Lands supporters came together, using umbrellas to symbolically "provide cover" for Golden Wattle Park /Mirnu Wirra (Park 21 West).
Only four days later, on Thursday 8 June, the State Government relented, and came up with a new plan to stable police horses on land near Adelaide airport instead, and utilise a small patch of land in Wright Street in the city, as a daily staging post, whenever horses are required in the CBD.
We've publicly congratulated the State Government on this change of heart. In a joint media release with Conservation SA, Trees for Life, Butterfly Conservation SA, Nature Conservation Society SA, we said:
“The Adelaide Park Lands Association warmly congratulates the State Government for listening to the community and acting to protect your Adelaide Park Lands from this proposed threat. We now look forward to assisting the State Government in progressing a campaign for World Heritage listing of Adelaide's unique treasure."
Our congratulations also extend to the South-East City Residents Association, the South-West City Association, Lord Mayor Jane Lomax-Smith, Adelaide City councillors, Unley City Councillors as well as the Greens’ Robert Simms, and the Liberal Party’s David Speirs and Jack Batty, along with countless others whose advocacy helped to achieve this Government turnaround.
As I told Channel Ten's Alan Murrell, it remains to be seen whether this means that the State Government has had a change of heart, and will now start to Love Your Park Lands at other locations, and/or whether this decision will clear the way for long-delayed State Heritage listing of your Park Lands.
What’s the next step?
We will be probing the State Government with questions to determine whether it has learned anything from the past three months of fighting over the fate of your Park Lands.
Will the Government continue with other planned attacks on your Park Lands, failing to consult on any of them?
Or will it go back to the drawing board and start looking for brownfield sites for new developments such as its proposed new Women's and Children's Hospital, and new Aquatic Centre?
There are still five sites within your Park Lands that the State Government is targeting (or has already attacked) with developments that are not 'Open, Green, Public."
These attacks were not subject to community consultation. The Government did not ever ask you whether you consented to losing parts of your Park Lands for these new developments.
There is also the matter of State Heritage listing, which has been be-set with bureaucratic delays since public consultation in 2017 and being recommended by the State Heritage Council in 2018.
The Government’s decision on police barracks
You can read stories about the State Government's decision here:
