by Shane Sody
SA Labor is supporting an attack by the Marshall Liberal Government on Frome Park (in Park 11).
The Marshall Liberal State Government is prepared to go into this year's State election on a record of attacking your Open Green Public Park Lands more ruthlessly than any Government in SA's history, and the Labor Party is prepared to match their attacks.
These trees in Frome Park (in Park 11) are set to become the latest casualty of Government re-zoning, with plans announced for a massive new high school building to take over the last remaining green space on the eastern side of Frome Road.
In late 2021, the State Government undertook consultation on proposals to re-zone 70 hectares of your Open Green Public Park Lands, while simultaneously (and hypocritically) seeking the status of “National Park City” for Adelaide.
The public response was overwhelmingly positive for your Park Lands, with 87 per cent urging the State Government to protect Open Green Public spaces.
Despite this, the State Government has ruthlessly gone ahead with re-zoning approximately 35 hectares of Park Lands. The size of the re-zoned area is smaller than first proposed (approx 35 hectares rather than 70 hectares).
Nevertheless, when the re-zoning took effect this week it became the biggest attack on the Adelaide Park Lands in their 185-year history.
Now that the re-zoning has taken effect, Premier Steve Marshall has wasted no time in announcing another building to replace some of your Open Green Public space.
Making a mockery of Adelaide's "National Park City" status, the re-zoning has enabled the Premier to announce a $98 million high school extension, that would partly obliterate what little remains of Open Green Public space along the eastern side of Frome Road - i.e. Frome Park/ Nellie Raminyemmerin Park. (The Advertiser - $$ - subscriber-only link)
The Botanic High School in 2019 doubled the size of what was previously the UniSA Reid building, but left some green space (Frome Park) still open along Frome Road, in Park 11
Botanic High School already has a massive footprint extending into Park 11
This proposal was NOT foreshadowed in the State Government's sham "consultation" last year on its intended re-zoning.
An artist’s impression of the proposed large extension of the Botanic High School (on the right) into and over the top of the Open Green Public space of Frome Park.
Disappointingly, SA Labor has matched the Liberal Party with exactly the same threat to Frome Park. Labor’s Education spokesman Blair Boyer told the Sunday Mail “we will proceed with this expansion if elected in March”.
SA Labor’s Blair Boyer and Frome Park which he has promised to attack, just like the Marshall Liberal Government, if Labor is elected on 19 March 2022.
SA Labor is opposed to a new stadium in Helen Mayo Park, but has not made any commitment to reversing the Liberal Government’s recent rezoning of 35 hectares of Park Lands. The rezoning makes future Park Lands losses inevitable in all of the newly-rezoned areas, regardless of whether SA has a Labor or Liberal Government after the March 2022 State election.
SA Labor has also shown contempt for your Park Lands by threatening to re-commence lengthy annual public restrictions in Victoria Park/ Pakapakanthi (Park 16) to facilitate an anachronistic four-day fossil-fuelled motor racing event.
Petition to SA Labor leader Peter Malinauskas: “Don’t bring fossil fuel motor racing back to a clean, green park”
The attack on Frome Park by both Liberal and Labor parties comes on top of the Liberal State Government's other planned Park Lands attacks:
destroying Helen Mayo Park with a $662 million stadium, and
building a multi-storey car park on Kate Cocks Park, and
destroying the last two-hectare patch of Open Green Public space next to the Royal Adelaide Hospital, by squeezing a reduced-size Women’s and Children's Hospital onto a site too small for it in Park 27, and
refusing to restore to Park Lands any part of the old Royal Adelaide Hospital site on Park 11.
No Government in SA’s history has ever made so many simultaneous attacks on your Park Lands.
Even more attacks on your Park Lands are likely to be announced soon, on recently re-zoned areas, including in what is now an "Entertainment Precinct" that is supposed to replace Helen Mayo Park.
What can you do?
If you haven't done so already, please take these actions:
contact the Premier, the Planning Minister and the Member for Adelaide to reverse the re-zoning that will facilitate both the stadium and this new High School building on Park 11, and
sign the two petitions:
urge your friends to do the same.
Your Adelaide Park Lands will be saved only if the State Government is persuaded that there are enough people who care about them.
See more ways you can TAKE ACTION.
