What it took to save your Park Lands from the Police Mounted Unit
Artist’s impression of new SAPOL barracks, that had been proposed to fence off your Open Green Public Golden Wattle Park / Mirnu Wirra (Park 21W)
In 2022, the State Government announced plans to demolish the Thebarton Police Barracks within Park 27, to provide a site for a proposed new Women’s and Children’s Hospital. SA Police were immediately put on notice to start looking for one or more new homes.
Thebarton Police barracks was the base for about 250 police officers and staff, including the dog squad, police armoury, road safety, protective security services, the police band, a police museum and also the mounted unit; home of the police horses, the “greys”. The entire complex, including horse yards, occupies an area of six hectares in Park 27, between Bonython Park and Kate Cocks Park.
Within weeks, the State Government admitted that the likely new home for the police Mounted Unit would be another site on your Open Green Public Park Lands. A law passed by State Parliament in November 2022 - the New Women’s and Children’s Hospital Act 2022 - gave the Minister the power to simply take over an area of your Open Green Public Park Lands.
The plan was not simply to allow horses to roam free, but also for associated buildings to consolidate both the Park Lands AND the Echunga bases of the Police Mounted Operations unit, with:
stables for 40 horses
offices for 30 staff
a reception /communications room
officers meeting room
kitchen
change-rooms
showers, toilets and lockers for staff
horse “tack” rooms
tack preparation cleaning rooms
veterinary suite
fodder stores
a secure gun room
outdoor landscaping equipment shedding, for tractors etc
horse manure heaps
horse training “lunge” ring
internal fencing
horse float garaging
water run off system for hosing horses, yard and cleaning vehicles; and
staff car parking.
On 12 March 2023, the Police Commissioner, Grant Stevens announced that SA Police would be seeking to relocate their mounted unit to this 8-hectare site in Golden Wattle Park/ Mirnu Wirra (Park 21W).
Looking south, across Golden Wattle Park / Mirnu Wirra (Park 21W) with Whitmore Square and South Terrace in the foreground and Greenhill Road and the Wayville Showgrounds in the background. This is an artist’s impression of how the proposal in March 2023 would have dominated this part of your Open Green Public Adelaide Park Lands.
That site in Park 21 West, chosen for only the Mounted Unit (eight hectares) was much larger than the six-hectare site at Thebarton used until 2023 by 250 officers and staff from multiple police services. It was larger than the Adelaide Oval stadium; equivalent to the area of about 200 house blocks. The fencing around the perimeter of an eight-hectare site would have been 1.2 kilometres long.
SAPOL had only a few of their 40 horses in Bonython Park / Tulya Wardli (Park 27) while a larger number were kept at a secure rural site near Echunga. The plan in March 2023 was to consolidate both sites, and locate all 40 horses on one site; here, on your Park Lands.
This area had been lovingly tended by ‘Bush for Life’ volunteers over the many years, to restore native vegetation.
Note the extent of successful revegetation done by Bush for Life volunteers working in co-operation with the City of Adelaide.
Their work has been successful in rengerating this part of your Park Lands, but their work would have been largely destroyed by the proposed police barracks development. Wildflowers like these would certainly have been unable to survive.
Pink convolvulus (left) and pink garland lily (right). Pics: Ann Prescott. See more pics of the wildflowers of your southern Park Lands.
Privately-owned horses are kept elsewhere in your Adelaide Park Lands: in Lefevre Park /Nantu Wama (Park 6). The depasturing paddocks are Open, Green, Public; with no restrictions on entry.
In contrast, the public is not permitted to enter paddocks in which SA Police Horses are kept, much less any new stables or offices that would need to be constructed for the police mounted unit.
Hundreds of people attended a rally to “Save Mirnu Wirra” on Saturday 1 April 2023.
The rally was covered on TV News, by the ABC, Channel 9, and Channel 7:
That was followed by a second event, on Sunday 4 June 2023, with a thousand Park Lands supporters “providing cover’:
Only four days later, on Thursday 8 June, 2023, Premier Peter Malinauskas announced a change of heart - that your Park Lands would be spared; and that police horses would be located instead on two sites: one near Adelaide airport and the other a small staging post at Wright Street in the city.
We joined with Trees for Life, Conservation SA, Butterfly Conservation SA, and the Nature Conservation Society in congratulating the Government on its change of heart. https://www.conservationsa.org.au/mirnu_wirra_saved
See our series of stories on this issue:
THE DEATH OF 1,000 CUTS
Repeated Park Lands losses were once characterised as like "mice nibbling away at cheese". However recent attacks seem more like a debaucherous feast with participants devouring whatever is available, while it lasts.
The rate of Park Lands loss seems set to ratchet up exponentially unless the public can be alerted to save what's really precious and priceless.
There are many other sites within Adelaide Park Lands that are under imminent threat, or current attack.
If you think Adelaide can do better than this, then TAKE ACTION!
