Peter Goers: Privatised parklands a done deal for Adelaide Crows
Adelaide Football Club will be given a huge swathe of the parklands — for free, Peter Goers reckons. It’s not a surprise given they’re the arrogant, entitled top end of town. But it doesn’t make it right.
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The Crows are a shambles currently but they are the arrogant, entitled top end of town and they always get what they want. Except for premierships.
The Crows will be given a huge swathe of the parklands. For free.
They might as well start bulldozing Adelaide Aquatic Centre now.
They’re in. It’s done deal. In secret.
They’ll get to build their training, administration and entertainment complex.
They’ll have their beloved “shed” for game day piss-ups. All in the parklands.
All given to a multimillion-dollar corporation which is a franchise of an even richer corporation in Melbourne. For free.
And our taxes will help pay for it all.
This will come to pass. Here’s how and why.
The Crows were wrong-footed by the move to Adelaide Oval and their new $21 million headquarters at West Lakes no longer suits because they can’t make money there.
The Crows have tried twice before to take over the parklands and failed.
Adelaide City Council and the Crows oppose the Adelaide Oval hotel development yet they both want to develop the parklands.
Adelaide Aquatic Centre is enormously popular. Up to 800,000 people use it every year. Those are the council’s figures.
It was recently upgraded but it’s an ageing facility in need of expensive upkeep and the council is keen to privatise it.
During the election both the Federal Government and the Opposition incredibly promised the Crows $15 million to develop the parklands with plans that did not exist.
Rather than offer the proposal for community consultation in the regular way, the council and the Crows have kept the proposed development secret.
The Lord Mayor, councillors and staff have seen the plans but taxpayers and ratepayers can’t.
I reckon it’s a done deal.
The Crows will be given a prime piece of parklands worth $100 million for free.
The building can be as big and as high as the Convention Centre. Plus two ovals. An agreement will be reached with Blackfriars Priory School, which leases the ovals, and they’ll be moved off.
The plans will be made public at Christmas when people are distracted.
The council will present the Aquatic Centre as run down and disused. The Crows will build a reduced aquatic centre and eventually stymie its use.
They can’t have a permanent liquor licence there but will get temporary game-day liquor licences for the new “shed”.
The club will include enormous car parks in the design and use shuttle buses to ferry the fans to and fro’ Adelaide Oval. Apart from one nearby hotel, North Adelaide businesses will not benefit.
The parklands, which belong to all of us, will be privatised. Powerful lobbyists will go to work. Even parklands preservationists will buckle because it’s the sacred Crows.
Imagine the outcry if any other corporation was given the same slice of parklands and $15 million of taxpayers’ money – yet there is no difference.
Lest you think my dislike of the Crows influences my opinion, when I opposed the Moseley Beach Club at Glenelg I was lobbied by the Power and told Power players had a financial interest in it, and I was asked to back off for that reason. I said “get stuffed”.
It’s a done deal. And perhaps the Crows will also have a Toyota Camry dealership out the front of their gifted parklands.
■ Peter Goers can be heard weeknights and Sundays on ABC Radio Adelaide