After more than a year of campaigning, and more than 5,100 signatures on a petition, this month of August 2023 is crunch time. This month, there’ll be two decisions that will lead to either:
a win-win for swimmers and your Park Lands, or
a win-lose, with a renewed attack on a massive three hectares of Park 2 in your Adelaide Park Lands; next to the Adelaide Aquatic Centre.
If you Love Your Park Lands, now is the time to make your voice heard.
Both the State Government and the City Council have been urged to find a win-win: to pick a convenient near-city brownfield site for a proposed $135 million megalith Aquatic and commercial centre, rather than launch yet another attack on your Park Lands.
The State Government proposal: A win-lose for your Park Lands, that would destroy dozens of mature trees, rather than the win-win option of locating this proposed building on a convenient, near-city brownfield site, close to public transport.
The City Council is due to make its decision at its meeting on 22 August.
The State Government has not yet responded to our petition (see below) but can still opt to change course, to avoid breaking three of its own promises.
In the future, the area marked in blue will be either entirely Open Green Public Park Lands with a new aquatic centre located somewhere else (a win-win for swimmers and your Park Lands) OR the area marked in blue will be covered in bitumen, concrete and an enormous new aquatic and commercial centre (a win-lose for your Park Lands). It’s up to you, right now.
You can still help to protect this threatened three-hectare Park Lands site, and insist on a better, win-win site. However, time is running out. Your help is needed, NOW!
What is the Council doing?
The City Council has been undertaking the bare minimum public consultation on three very significant documents:
a proposed 42-year lease of this huge site for an new two-storey Aquatic and commercial centre; along with a construction licence, so that work could begin on 1 October this year; and
a revised Community Land Management Plan (CLMP) for your Park Lands, to endorse not just this project, but multiple other buildings on your Park Lands in future.
What can you do, to send a message to the Council?
Consultation on the CLMP has already closed. The Adelaide Park Lands Association has endorsed this scathing submission from author John Bridgland (PDF, 30 pages, 410 Kb).
Nevertheless, it is not too late for you to speak up about the proposed construction licence and proposed 42-year lease. There are two groups of people who need to hear your message: the City Council bureaucracy AND the elected Councillors.
First, we suggest responding to the formal consultation run by the City Council bureaucracy (NB: their deadline is 5pm on 3 August).
You can do this simply by emailing: yoursay@cityofadelaide.com.au and advising that you do NOT agree to leasing more than 29,000 square metres of your Adelaide Park Lands for an aquatic and commercial centre. There are several ways to register your view with the Council bureaucracy:
Click on this email address yoursay@cityofadelaide.com.au to open up a draft email, or
write your own email and send it to that same email address, or
copy and paste from this plain text file into your own email, or
register and login to the Yoursay website: https://yoursay.cityofadelaide.com.au/adelaide-aquatic-centre-redevelopment-construction-licence-and-lease-agreement; or
write a letter and post it to: Adelaide Aquatic Centre Redevelopment, GPO Box 2252 Adelaide SA 5001.
The closing date for any of these type of submissions is 5.00pm on Thursday 3 August 2023.
Second, by contacting the Lord Mayor, and all Councillors individually to ensure that they get the same message directly; i.e. not filtered through the Town Hall bureaucracy.
m.siebentritt@cityofadelaide.com.au
Clicking on any or all of these email addresses will open up a short simple draft email, asking each Councillor, in turn, to Love Your Park Lands and help the State Government find a better, brownfield site, to secure a win-win outcome for swimmers and your Park Lands.
Here is a plain text of the suggested email that you can copy and paste.
What is the State Government doing?
It’s proposing to break three of it’s own promises:
Three broken promises: (1) to protect Adelaide's tree canopy; (2) to consult you on your preferred Aquatic Centre location; and (3) to keep the old centre operating while a new one was being built.
Premier, Peter Malinauskas has now received the names of more than 5,000 people on our petition: “Save These Trees: Choose a Brownfield Site for New Aquatic Centre.” https://www.change.org/p/save-these-trees-choose-a-brownfield-site-for-new-aquatic-centre
27 July 2023. Left: APA President Shane Sody delivering 5,073 names on the petition to the Premier’s office.
Right: Mr Sody, and APA Deputy President Ben Ayris, on the same day, with a copy of the petition list for Lord Mayor Jane Lomax-Smith
The petition, containing 5,073 signatures, was delivered to the Premier's office on 27 July. This followed a public display: “Plant to Protect” in Denise Norton Park / Pardipardinyilla (Park 2) on Sunday 9 July.
What can you do, to send a message to the Gov’t?
Our petition is still open, but at this stage we suggest writing directly to :
Click on their names to open a draft suggested email.
Very last line of defence
If none of the above strategies succeeds, and the bulldozers are threatening to move in to destroy the trees, will you put yourself in their way?
If you’re prepared to rebel for your Park Lands, then please give us your confidential contact details, so we can invite you later to participate in specific direct action. Contact secretary@adelaide-parklands.asn.au to be put on a confidential alert list.
Read more
See our ongoing year-long coverage of the proposed new aquatic and commercial centre:
Aquatic Centre: Win-win option getting traction (12 June 2023)
On 6 March 2023, we joined hundreds of others in lodging a formal objection to State Government plans to re-zone Denise Norton Park / Pardipardinyilla (Park 2)
Government to chop falcon, possum, cockatoo habitat (27 Jan 2023)
Aquatic centre double press: Gov’t and Council (15 Jan 2023)
Aquatic centre: petition reaches 1,000 signatures (20 Dec 2022)
Cognitive dissonance on your tree canopy (4 Dec 2022)
Ideal brownfield opportunity (29 Nov 2022)
Diversions, illusions on Park attacks (12 Nov 2022)
Demand brownfield building sites instead (28 Oct 2022)
Patrick’s FOI probe on Aquatic Centre bungle (26 Sept 2022)
Hands Up for your Trees (12 Sept 2022)
New Aquatic Centre site targets dozens of mature trees (5 Sept 2022)
No assurances on tree destruction plans (15 Aug 2022)
When given a real choice (31 July 2022)
Aquatic centre consultation farce (22 July 2022)
Hindmarsh, Brompton, for an Aquatic Centre? (30 June 2022)
Olympic swimmer backs Park restoration (29 June 2022)
Imagine a restoration of this Park (20 June 2022)
State Gov’t tree threats making national headlines (16 June 2022)
Think Outside the Box for locations (26 May 2022)
Aquatic mistakes - learn from history and restore a Park (16 Feb 2022)
