by Shane Sody
Just over three years ago, Whitmore Square / Ipparityi in your Park Lands had a makeover, with new paving and planter beds around its perimeter.
So it was surprising to see recently much of that paving and the garden beds on the eastern side of the Square being ripped up.
What’s been going on? Lord Mayor, Jane Lomax Smith wants you to know that this had nothing to do with the City of Adelaide.
It’s SA Power Networks (not the City Council) who were disrupting both the garden and the roadway, over the course of several weeks in January and February. SAPN were upgrading power cables and transformers in preparation for the new Women’s and Children’s Hospital on your Park 27, and other developments in the City’s West End.
The work was due to be finished in early February, but two weeks after the Lord Mayor’s video was posted, (i.e. on Monday 17 February) work was still continuing:
The City of Adelaide has made it clear that SAPN will be responsible for reinstating Whitmore Square.
The Lord Mayor’s video, posted on social media on 4 February 2024, attracted plenty of comments, but didn’t affect the pace of SA Power Networks operations. This was the location on Sunday 23 February:
It’s not a coincidence that there’s an electricity substation on the eastern side of Whitmore Square:
The SAPN sub-station is marked in yellow, above. Disruption to Whitmore Square, the pathway and garden beds has affected not just the area immediately opposite the sub-station, but all the way along the eastern side of the Square, between Wright Street and Sturt Street.
