Adelaide Park Lands Association

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Aquatic Centre: Council hits pause

Shane Sody

Adelaide City Council has paused processes that might green-light the State Government’s proposed new $135 million megalith aquatic and commercial centre in your Park Lands.

The State Government wants the Council to clear away legal obstacles that would allow construction to begin, as soon as possible, on your Denise Norton Park / Pardipardinyilla (Park 2) destroying dozens of mature trees and wildlife habitat.

The Government had been intending to start construction in your Park Lands from 1 October.

Despite receiving 7,500 signatures on a petition, urging selection of an alternative win-win brownfield site, the Premier Peter Malinauskas has not been moved to consider switching sites.

For its part, the City Council is caught between the demands of the State Government, and the clear results of consultation with its own community.

Your Park Lands are subject to a "Community Land Management Plan" (CLMP) which is undergoing a process of revision. A published, draft version of a proposed new CLMP would authorise not just a huge new Aquatic Centre, on a site much bigger than the current centre, but also many other commercial developments almost everywhere in your Park Lands.

At a Council committee meeting on Tuesday 26 September, four community representatives:

  • Author John Bridgland

  • APA President Shane Sody

  • Elizabeth Rushbrook from the SE City Residents Association; and

  • Elbert Brooks from the North Adelaide Society

representing (in total) thousands of members and supporters, all urged the Council to re-draft the proposed new CLMP to better protect your Park Lands.

Faced with this strong community support for your Park Lands, the Council has now instructed staff to re-draft the proposed new CLMP. Only after the draft CLMP is revised to Council’s satisfaction and formally adopted, can the Council subsequently consider whether to grant a construction licence and lease to the State Government.

Feedback to Council, last month, on the proposed Aquatic Centre lease and construction licence was also clear: 98% want the new Aquatic Centre on a brownfield site instead.

Response statistics presented to Kadaltilla/Park Lands Authority on 24 August 2023. Note that this is not a NIMBY issue, with comparatively few responses coming from North Adelaide.

One obvious option for the proposed new Aquatic Centre would be to locate it on the old West End Brewery site, which the State Government has purchased for $61 million.

The former West End Brewery site: 8 hectares on Port Road, overlooking Bonython Park / Tulya Wardli (Park 27)

However this is not the only option. There are many other potential brownfield sites. For example, the City Council has purchased this two-hectare site in Franklin Street in the City, with high-rise housing in mind.

Images: Google maps

Any site currently earmarked for housing could, of course, have a residential tower built alongside or over the top of a new Aquatic Centre.

Some Councillors have indicated that they will respect the community's wishes, and will vote, when the matter comes back before Council later this year, to push back on the Government's plans and urge negotiation for a win-win brownfields site instead. Councillors Keiran Snape, Philip Martin, and Henry Davis have expressed their support for your Park Lands on this issue.

However, other Councillors remain to be convinced.

What can You DO?

  • Councillors need to hear directly from you, before they consider a State Government lease and construction licence over three hectares of your Park Lands; expected to be debated at a meeting in October or November 2023.

Contact the Lord Mayor, and all Councillors individually to ensure that they get the message directly; i.e. not filtered through the Town Hall bureaucracy.

Clicking on any or all of these email addresses will open up a short simple draft email, alerting each Councillor to the Government’s false claim about returning land to your Park Lands, and asking each Councillor, in turn, to Love Your Park Lands and help the State Government find a better, brownfield site, to secure a win-win outcome for swimmers and your Park Lands.

Here is a plain text of the suggested email that you can copy and paste.

Read more

Read the latest analysis (24 September) from author John Bridgland. “Why a win-win solution appears too hard to contemplate – even if it’s almost within reach” (PDF, 4 pages, 5.4 Mb)

See our ongoing coverage of the proposed new Aquatic Centre:

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