Another sliver of your Park Lands has quietly disappeared under concrete.
Neither the State Government nor the City Council has explained why this small part of your Park Lands - near Frome Park and the Botanic Garden, is now buried under a concrete slab, behind barbed wire.
The site is near the almost-completed new wing of Botanic High School in Frome Park, but this Park loss is more recent. This Park Lands area was not concreted until a few weeks ago, months after most of the massive new High School building was erected in 2023.
The site in August 2023, behind temporary fencing, before the concrete slab was laid, and the transportable huts brought in. Pic: Google Maps
The concrete slab and the “Lend Lease’ signage however certainly suggests that this extensive compound will be on your Park Lands for a very long time, perhaps to allow some other major building to be constructed on a nearby part of your Park 11 within the so-called “Lot Fourteen”.
It seems clear that when the Botanic High School work huts and fencing are taken away, later in 2024, these huts and barbed wire fencing will remain as a stark contrast against the Open Green Public spaces of what’s left of Frome Park, and the western entrance to the Adelaide Botanic Garden.
The location of the newly-lost sliver of your Park Lands. They are suffering the “death of 1,000 cuts”.
The City Council has not yet responded to questions about the site.
Meanwhile, a new expanse of bitumen has been laid near LeFevre Terrace, in LeFevre Park / Nantu Wama (Park 6). The newly-widened bitumen pathway appears to duplicate an existing north-south bike path on LeFevre Terrace.
“As I grew older I had to roam
Far from my family, far from my home
Into the city, where lives can be spent
Lost in the shadows of tar and cement.”
Verdelle Smith “Tar and Cement” (song, 1966)
