by Shane Sody
Next summer, your opportunities to enjoy Open, Green, Public Park Lands with family and friends will be restricted more than ever by the Premier, Peter Malinauskas.
Each year, a taxpayer-subsidised festival of carbon emission motor racing in Adelaide is scheduled in your Park Lands. It lasts for only four days. (This year it’s 14-17 November.) Nevertheless, these four days are just the middle part of an exclusion period of five-months, or longer, while the required temporary infrastructure is very slowly erected, then dismantled.
Over 2024-25, the Premier is planning to take even more of your eastern Park Lands for an even longer period than ever before.
Victoria Park / Pakapakanthi (Park 16 of your Adelaide Park Lands. Just one of three Parks that are subservient, for more than five months of the year, to a festival of carbon-emission motor racing.
On 23 May 2024, Kadaltilla / the Park Lands Authority was warned that the motor sport festival would be demanding a massive extra area, covering not just Victoria Park / Pakapakanthi (Park 16) and all of King Rodney Park / Ityamai-itpina (Park 15) but now also extending right across Rymill Park / Murlawirrapurka (Park 14) as far north as Rundle Road.
This year’s proposal for the “Declared Area” of the Adelaide 500, from 19 August to 26 January. The yellow/pale orange areas are the new exclusion zones. See a high-resolution version of this image here.
Not only is this required area expanded by an additional 16-thousand square metres (compared to last year) the length of time for the takeover has also been extended. Works are planned to start on 19th August and won’t be concluded until 26th January 2025 - a seven day increase on the period required for last year's event.
Deputy Lord Mayor Keiran Snape has said he doesn’t consider this acceptable. “Unfortunately, due to the Motorsports Act, [the City] Council is powerless to intervene.”
Section 20 of the South Australian Motor Sport Act 1984 requires the Minister for Motor Sport (the Premier) to consult with the City Council and the Park Lands Authority but neither the Premier nor the Motor Sport Board is obliged to alter their plans as a result of any objections.
Deputy Lord Mayor, Cr Keiran Snape.
The Adelaide Park Lands Association welcomes short-term events in your Park Lands. However, the longer that your Park Lands are fenced off, for paying customers and/or to exclude the public, the less they are Open, Green, Public.
It is also curious how the State Government can defend its subsidy of carbon-emission motor racing after its 2022 declaration of a climate emergency.
The SA Government: acting on a climate emergency, by subsidising carbon emissions in your Park Lands, while restricting your use of those Park Lands.
UPDATE: 30 MAY 2024.
The Motor Sport Board has announced plans to dump thousands of tonnes of dirt into your eastern Park Lands to create a temporary dirt speedway track for sprint cars
A “sprint car” of the type heading for either Rymill Park / Murlawirrapurka (Park 14) or King Rodney Park / ityamai-itpina (Park 15) this coming November, on a purpose-built dirt track.
Read the story here: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-30/dirt-speedway-plans-for-adelaide-parklands/103909614
If you think Adelaide can do better than this, then TAKE ACTION!
Shane Sody is the President of the Adelaide Park Lands Association and the editor of the semi-monthly newsletter, "Open Green Public".
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https://adelaideparklands.m-pages.com/YWRrGW/adelaide-park-lands-assn-mailing
