by Shane Sody

Planning Minister Josh Teague, Environment Minister David Speirs, and the chair of the State Heritage Council, Keith Conlon have discussed the ongoing multi-year delay in State Heritage Listing of your Adelaide Park Lands.

It's been more than three years since the Heritage Council recommended to Minister Speirs that the Adelaide Park Lands be recognised as a State Heritage Area.

Since that time, bureaucratic delays have stymied progress. Departmental staff have insisted that "heritage standards" must first be developed, even though there is no legislative basis for this insistence.

Your Park Lands could have and should have been afforded interim heritage status while the standards were being developed. The Park Lands are already subject to a comprehensive statutory Management Plan - even though the State Government ignores that Plan when it wants to attack Park Lands with inconsistent development.

Despite the three-year delay, no standards have been developed. We understand that little or no budget has been allocated to developing these standards.

Thousands of South Australians who responded positively to a 2017 survey have had their wishes ignored.

The lengthy delay is in stark contrast to the speed with which the State Government acted in 2021 when it decided to re-zone dozens of hectares of your Park Lands for development inconsistent with Open Green Public Park Lands. A proposal was put forwarded in July 2021 and came into effect, with some changes, in January 2022. The re-zoning led immediately to plans for a new eight-storey building on Frome Park in Park 11.

Judging from the experience of the past three years, the only conclusion that can be drawn is that, for the State Government, Park Lands protection is a low priority, and Park Lands destruction is a high priority.

*Enjoying sport in the shade of eucalypts in Lefevre Park / Nantu Wama (Park 6)*

APA President Shane Sody had the opportunity to question Planning Minister Josh Teague on Monday 24 January 2022, during a video meeting, about the lack of progress on State Heritage listing.

Minister Teague referred to a meeting that he'd had earlier on the same day with Minister Speirs and Mr Conlon. He gave no assurances about acting on the Heritage Council recommendation from December 2018. All he would say was that: "it was a very good meeting, with a high degree of harmony."

Mr Conlon later advised APA that:

"The main content of the meeting was on broad heritage reform proposals, but I did have the opportunity to raise the issue of the South Australian Heritage Council existing recommendation that the Park Lands be declared a State Heritage Area. Under legislation, that falls to the Planning Minister. I simply noted that Heritage Council is hoping that work on the required Heritage Standards will be completed in coming months."

The delay is much longer than three years. Your Adelaide Park Lands were nominated for State Heritage listing way back on 2009. What has happened in the past 13 years? Read the full saga here: www.adelaide-parklands.asn.au/heritage

The “Save Helen Mayo Park Picnic Rally” last October. All political parties will discover on election day, 19 March 2022, that the Park Lands vote WILL make a difference in a tight political contest.

APA intends to make this into a State election issue. We have also sought a meeting with the Opposition spokesperson on Planning, Andrea Michaels.