State Government “Restore” FAIL
In 2023, the State Government put $135 million on the table to build a new Aquatic Centre. This represented a once-in-a-generation opportunity to restore a part of your Park Lands that was lost 53 years earlier.
Can you imagine what this Park would have looked like, fully restored to ‘Open, Green, Public’?
We Love Your Park Lands. That’s why, for more than 18 months, we campaigned to try to convince either the State Government, or the Adelaide City Council (or both) that a proposed new Aquatic Centre should go on a brownfield site.
Our campaign was about MORE trees, on a fully-restored and fully-protected Denise Norton Park / Pardipardinyilla (Park 2).
This was a campaign to PROTECT and RESTORE your Open, Green, Public Treasure.
Despite overwhelming community support, including more than 8,000 signatures on a petition, to the Premier, our campaign was unsuccessful. Here’s how we tried to combat misleading Government propaganda and broken promises.
Unpaving paradise: pilot re-greening project
In 2020, we had correspondence with the then-Lord Mayor offering to take part in a community project to green an expanse of bitumen.
As you can see in the video below (‘Paving Paradise’) there are dozens of places within the Adelaide Park Lands where private car parking has taken over green, open, public spaces. Areas reserved for private car parking are areas that are not “Open, Green, Public”.
We decided to target one site at a time. Our first focus was the bitumen expanse off Port Road opposite the Thebarton tram stop in your Bonython Park / Tulya Wardli (Park 27) formerly used, long ago, as netball courts.
In 2021, we received permission to start planning. The City Council encouraged us to draw up plans to re-green just part of this bitumen expanse - the area outlined in yellow in the image below.
In 2022 we held a poster design competition, seeking ideas to transform this small area of bitumen carpark into a creative oasis of green!
The location of the proposed pilot project, which we named “Unpaving Paradise”
This was to have been a pilot project, which, if successful, would have been (we hoped) a template for other re-greening projects within the Adelaide Park Lands.
The winning entries in our design competition were announced in June 2022.
An extract from one of the winning entries. Read more here.
However in October 2023 the City Council pulled the plug and removed permission to go ahead with this project.
Talks are continuing to try to find an alternative location to restore.
CLEAN UP A PARK
Twice per year we hold “clean up” sessions in different parts of your Park Lands.
The next one will be on “Clean Up Australia Day” - Sunday 3 March 2024 in Mistletoe Park / Tainmuntilla (Park 11). Here’s the page to register your attendance. https://register.cleanup.org.au/fundraisers/adel-park-lands
Clean Up Australia describes this as a “fundraiser” but there is no requirement to donate.
REIMAGINE VICTORIA PARK
A separate project is under way to Reimagine Victoria Park - to free it from the lingering detritus of decades of motor racing, and plant more trees. See the “Reimagine Victoria Park” project.
Background
Our mission is to Explore, Inspire, Protect and Restore.
We are not just about protecting the Park Lands that remain. We pursue reclaiming, re-greening, or restoring former Park sites.
There are about 200 sites within the Park Lands that are no longer Open Green Public but have been lost to buildings and bitumen.
It's time that the public demanded back some of these lost locations, which should be held on trust for the people of South Australia.
