by Shane Sody
Paris is replacing car parks with trees, while here in Adelaide, the State Government is doing the opposite.
A new climate plan for the French capital promises to drop speed limits, repurpose traffic lanes, remove 60,000 parking spots and create urban “oases” to combat extreme heat.
Place de Catalogne in Paris. Photographer: Pierre Crom/Getty Images Europe
The new Paris plans include promises to establish 300 hectares of new green space by 2030. Removing parking spaces will be a major component of this.
The South Australian Government is ensuring that Adelaide is doing the exact opposite.
Hundreds of trees in your Adelaide Park Lands have been destroyed over the past 12 months.
In November 2023, these trees were felled for a new Aquatic Centre, AND to double the amount of car parking, in Denise Norton Park / Pardipardinyilla (Park 2).
Then, in the first half of 2024, Kate Cocks Park, off Gaol Road in your Adelaide Park Lands was stripped of ALL its trees, to make way for, guess what? A new eight-storey car park, alongside what will become the new Women’s and Children’s Hospital on Park 27 of your Park Lands.
The State Government earlier ignored thousands of calls to choose better, brownfield sites for both its planned Aquatic Centre and its new Women’s and Children’s Hospital.
The State Government has shown by its actions that it does not value your National Heritage-listed Adelaide Park Lands and seems to view your Park Lands as merely vacant building allotments.
On 25 November 2024, Premier, Peter Malinauskas proudly shared the second image below on social media without acknowledging either that this cleared area is entirely within your Park Lands, nor that hundreds of your trees had been felled to create this massive building allotment.
What was, until 2024, an urban forest of olive trees, river red gums, and sheoaks in Kate Cocks Park (Park 27 of your Park Lands). Now it’s a State Government building site, to include (centre) an eight-storey car park. Pic: Peter Malinauskas.
The contrast with Paris could not be starker.
The author of this article, Shane Sody, is the President of the Adelaide Park Lands Association and the editor of the semi-monthly newsletter, "Open Green Public".
Subscribe here.
https://adelaideparklands.m-pages.com/YWRrGW/adelaide-park-lands-assn-mailing
