by Shane Sody
More high-powered lighting is coming to another sports field within your Park Lands.
Karen Rolton Oval, in Gladys Elphick Park / Narnungaa (Park 25 of your Adelaide Park Lands) is already illuminated by 30-metre light towers to allow sport to be played at night. But apparently the existing light towers are not high enough “to meet national sports lighting standards”.
Now, the SA Cricket Association (SACA) the licensee of the sports grounds in Park 25, have won approval to double the number of their lighting towers, to stretch across two sports fields, not just one.
Kadaltilla / the Park Lands Authority, has endorsed a SACA proposal to replace the current 30m towers with four new 40m towers “for better visibility and performance.”
The existing 30m towers will be relocated to the adjacent Oval #2 in Park 25, which Kadaltilla advises “will enhance lighting across the park.”
Subject to securing funding, SACA also intends to go ahead with plans to install terraced seating and shade structures on the eastern side of Karen Rolton Oval.
Proposed changes, not including foreshadowed shade structures. Image produced by Oxigen and submitted to Kadaltilla/ Park Lands Authority.
Diagram released in February 2025 by Kadaltilla / Park Lands Authority
Kadaltilla advises that in preparation for installing the new towers, and relocating the old ones, SACA will:
“engage cultural monitors during excavation;
“conduct an environmental impact assessment; and
“minimise the visual impact of electrical infrastructure.”
Kadaltilla says that the new and extended lighting n Park 25, will help to boost women’s cricket, “activate” Adelaide’s west end, and “enhance safety” for everyone using Park 25 at night.
Park 25 is also encumbered with what are effectively privatised cricket training facilities.
Fenced off to exclude the public in Park 25
Meanwhile in Park 21 West
Kadaltilla / the Park Lands Authority has also endorsed a 21-year lease for the Adelaide Community Sports and Recreation Association (ACSARA) at Golden Wattle Park / Mirnu Wirra (Park 21 West), “supporting the redevelopment of community sports facilities.”
ACSARA was previously known as the “Adelaide Lutheran Sports Club”. It’s been based in Park 21 West since 1983.
Public consultation on the proposed lease will take place over the next few weeks, before the City Council makes a decision in mid-2025.
Assuming that the 21-year lease is approved, ACSARA is expecting to spend $2.55 million on redevelopment of a new clubroom building, described by Kadaltilla as a “community sports facility”.
Artist’s impression of the western (Goodwood Road) side of the proposed new ACSARA building intended for Golden Wattle Park /Mirnu Wirra (Park 21 West)
Sport infrastructure: the wider picture
Your Park Lands are home to dozens of different sports, played by all sorts of people for fun, recreation but also in some cases as commercial business enterprises.
When you think about sport on your Park Lands, you might be thinking of school teams, or amateur clubs, turning out on weekends or mid-week after school, for soccer, cricket, football, tennis, etc.
But your Park Lands also host venues for elite athletes in multi-million dollar professional competitions. That includes AFL matches, international Test cricket and top-level tennis at Adelaide Oval or Memorial Drive in your Park 26. But elite-level sport is no longer confined to these locations within your Park Lands. Professional, elite sport has spilled over into other nearby Parks, for example:
International one-day cricket matches, and other first-class cricket games (e.g. the coming Sheffield Shield final commencing on 26 March) are often scheduled at Karen Rolton Oval in your Gladys Elphick Park / Narnungga (Park 25); and
the Adelaide Comets soccer club in 2025 has just commenced playing professional-level Premier League soccer games at the newly-fenced pitch in your Ellis Park / Tampawardli (Park 24).
State politicians and City Councillors are usually keen to assist sporting clubs to improve their facilities; granting funds and/or leases to parts of your Park Lands so that sporting clubs can grow, attract more players and members, and in some cases advance from amateur to professional status, requiring more facilities to be constructed over your Park Lands.
What often seems to be overlooked in the scramble to promote elite sport on your Park Lands, is the public interest in having free, unfettered access to Open, Green, Public spaces.
Typically, neither politicians nor elite sporting bodies even acknowledge that these essentially private facilities are built over what was once Open Green Public Park Lands.
To illustrate that point, Tennis SA, SACA, the SANFL, and the management of Adelaide Oval, all rejected invitations to be interviewed for this documentary by Patrick Prior:
