Adelaide City Council moves towards shutting down free carpark at Bonython Park
A free parking lot used by hundreds of commuters daily is on the verge of being closed down. Do you support the council’s plan?
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A temporary free carpark on the edge of the city used daily by hundreds of commuters is on the verge of being closed down.
Adelaide City Council is moving to use former netball courts at Bonython Park as the site of a new beach volleyball complex.
The courts were identified as a potential location for beach volleyball after a city site on Pirie St was sold by the council for development.
The council has permitted free parking at Bonython Park since the netball courts closed in 1997.
Usage dramatically increased from 2010 when the tram line was extended from the city to the Entertainment Centre, with a stop installed opposite the netball courts.
Four hour limit signs were erected in 2015 when construction workers on the new Royal Adelaide Hospital began using the carpark and tram to reach the site.
Councillors voted last year to ask staff to investigate whether parking fees should be introduced to raise money to cover the cost of maintaining the temporary carpark.
A staff report instead has recommended the carpark should be closed down and either used as a new beach volleyball site or returned to parklands.
It found the parking fees cannot be charged as it would be contrary to policies governing the use of parklands.
They included a strategy to reduce carparking within the parklands by five per cent before 2025.
The report said there were about 350 parking spaces on the former Bonython Park netball courts, which required regular maintenance because of wear and tear.
“The existing surface condition has not withstood current use by motor vehicles, which has deteriorated the surface and the landscape,” it said.
There also had been problems with haphazard parking because there was no line marking on the courts.
“This has resulted in unstructured parking or ‘vehicle creep’,” said the report.
“There have been approximately 20 to 30 complaints in the last two financial years about vehicles being blocked by other cars.”
It also had been difficult to enforce the four-hour time limit at the carpark, with illegal carparking making up most of the 1838 expiation notices issued at Bonython Park in the past financial year.
The staff report said if the beach volleyball proposal received funding and went ahead, most of the carpark would have to be closed.
It recommended closure should happen immediately, rather than be delayed, because the operation of a carpark was “inconsistent” with the Adelaide Park Lands Management Strategy.
The report will be discussed by the Kadaltilla/Park Lands Authority on Thursday.
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