Adelaide Park Lands Under Pressure

The parks and open spaces surrounding Adelaide's city centre are under siege from a range of planned developments, failure to return land designated for rehabilitation and Government plans to site new developments on the famous expanse of open space.

Currently the South Australian Department of Transport is finalising a new public transport corridor through the parklands - one of a host of developments either planned, being considered or attempted in recent times which would eat into the Adelaide Park Lands.

These include the expansion of Adelaide Oval, building the new Royal Adelaide Hospital, new permanent parking areas for sports fixtures, expansion of the Adelaide Convention Centre, a permanent motor sport infrastructure with corporate suites and road developments.

About 10% per cent of the parklands' 944 hectare has already been sequestered by successive South Australian Governments for uses such as transport depots, rail lines and parking.

South Australian Treasurer Kevin Foley has told the South Australian Parliament that an audit of car parking for the upgraded Adelaide Oval was being conducted, which included using industrial land in the parklands as car parking. He called on private investors to build car parks for the oval, saying the Government would not foot the bill.

Meanwhile Adelaide's O-Bahn plan is well underway with the South Australian Transport Department announcing in a recent statement that plans would soon be presented to Parliament's Public Works Committee.

The statement explained "concept plans and traffic modelling are being finalised by the Department for Transport, Energy and Infrastructure for the three stages of the O-Bahn project: Hackney Road, the section using existing roads through the parklands from Hackney Road to Grenfell St, and through Grenfell and Currie streets."

Adelaide Park Lands advocate and former deputy Lord Mayor Mark Hamilton said the parklands were viewed as vacant real estate, stating "the sands are shifting quite quickly about what is parkland and what the Government says should be for public benefit.

"We are now talking about things like spending tens of millions of dollars on a footbridge to Adelaide Oval to save people strolling about 100 metres on a perfectly good existing bridge.

"I'm not against car parking in the parklands - it is quite pleasant and you can have a barbecue and enjoy the day - but that is completely different to constructing multi-storey car parks in the parklands.

"The romantic notion of using public transport to come into town, having dinner, then strolling to the Oval to watch a game is completely at odds with the push to get parking built on the parklands.

"State Governments have a history of trying to purloin parklands. It is one of our great treasures but it is under siege."